I see no adequate answer to this contention of the Archbishop. But it certainly goes to confirm the estimates given me by Sergeant Mahony of Father M'Fadden's receipts at Gweedore, and the opinion expressed to me by Lord Lucan as to the average returns of an average Catholic parish, that the priest of Milford, a place hardly so considerable as Gweedore, should have acquired so handsome a property in the exercise there of his parochial functions.

One form in which the priests in many parts of Ireland collect dues is certainly unknown to the practice of the Church elsewhere, I believe, and it must tend to swell the incomes of the priests at the expense, perhaps, of their legitimate influence. This is the custom of personal collections by the priests. In many parishes the priest stands by the church-door, or walks about the church—not with a bag in his hand, as is sometimes done in France on great occasions when a quele is made by the cure for some special object,—but with an open plate in which the people put their offerings. I have heard of parishes in which the priest sits by a table near the church-door, takes the offerings from the parishioners as they pass, and comments freely upon the ratio of the gift to the known or presumed financial ability of the giver.

We had some curious stories, too, from a gentleman present of the relation of the priests in wild, out-of-the-way corners of Ireland to the people, stories which take one back to days long before Lever. One, for example, of a delightful and stalwart old parish priest of eighty, upon whom an airy young patriot called to propose that he should accept the presidency of a local Land League. The veteran, whose only idea of the Land League was that it had used bad language about Cardinal Cullen, no sooner caught the drift of the youth than he snatched up a huge blackthorn, fell upon him, and "boycotted" him head-foremost out of a window. Luckily it was on the ground floor.

Another strenuous spiritual shepherd came down during the distribution of potato-seed to the little port in which it was going on, and took up his station on board of the distributing ship. One of his parishioners, having received his due quota, made his way back again unobserved on board of the ship. As he came up to receive a second dole, the good father spied him, and staying not "to parley or dissemble," simply fetched him a whack over the sconce with a stick, which tumbled him out of the ship, head-foremost, into the hooker riding beside her! Quite of another drift was a much more astonishing tale of certain proceedings had here in February last before the Lord Chief-Justice. These took place in connection with a motion to quash the verdict of a coroner's jury, held in August 1887, on the body of a child named Ellen Gaffney, at Philipstown, in King's County, which preserves the memory of the Spanish sovereign of England, as Maryborough in Queen's preserves the memory of his Tudor consort. Cervantes never imagined an Alcalde of the quality of the "Crowner"' who figures in this story. Were it not that his antics cost a poor woman her liberty from August 1887 till December of that year, when the happy chance of a winter assizes set her free, and might have cost her her life, the story of this ideal magistrate would be extremely diverting.

A child was born to Mrs. Gaffney at Philipstown on the 23d of July, and died there on the 25th of August 1887, Mrs. Gaffney being the wife of a "boycotted" man.

A local doctor named Clarke came to the police and asked the Sergeant to inspect the body of the child, and call for an inquest. The sergeant inspected the body, and saw no reason to doubt that the child had died a natural death. This did not please the doctor, so the Coroner was sent for. He came to Philipstown the next day, conferred there with the doctor, and with a priest, Father Bergin, and proceeded to hold an inquest on the child in a public-house, "a most appropriate place," said Sir Michael Morris from the bench, "for the transactions which subsequently occurred." Strong depositions were afterwards made by the woman Mrs. Gaffney, by her husband, and by the police authorities, as to the conduct of this "inquest." She and her husband were arrested on a verbal order of the Coroner on the day when the inquest was held, August 27th, and the woman was kept in prison from that time till the assizes in December. The "inquest" was not completed on the 27th of August, and after the Coroner adjourned it, two priests drove away on a car from the "public-house" in which it had been held. That night, or the next day, a man came to a magistrate with a bundle of papers which he had found in the road near Philipstown. The magistrate examined them, and finding them to be the depositions taken before the Coroner in the case of Ellen Gaffney, handed them to the police. How did they come to be in the road? On the 1st of September the Coroner resumed his inquest, this time in the Court-House at Philipstown, and one of the police, with the depositions in his pocket, went to hear the proceedings. Great was his amazement to see certain papers produced, and calmly read, as being the very original depositions which at that moment were in his own custody! He held his peace, and let the inquest go on. A letter was read from the Coroner, to the effect that he saw no ground for detaining the husband, Gaffney—but the woman was taken before a justice of the peace, and committed to prison on this finding by the Coroner's jury: "That Mary Anne Gaffney came by her death; and that the mother of the child, Ellen Gaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care to sustain the life of this child "!

It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that upon this extraordinary finding the Coroner issued a warrant for "murder" against this poor woman, on which she was actually locked up for more than three months! The jury which made this unique finding consisted of nineteen persons, and it was in evidence that their foreman reported thirteen of the jury to be for finding one way and six for finding another, whereupon a certain Mr. Whyte, who came into the case as the representative of Father Bergin, President of the local branch of the National League—nobody can quite see on what colourable pretext—was allowed by the Coroner to write down the finding I have quoted, and hand it to the Coroner. The Coroner read it over. He and Mr. Whyte then put six of the jury in one place, and thirteen in another; the Coroner read the finding aloud to the thirteen, and said to them, "Is that what you agree to?" and so the inquest was closed, and the warrant issued—for murder—and the woman, this poor peasant mother sent off to jail with the brand upon her of infanticide.[29]

Where would that poor woman be now were there no "Coercion" in Ireland to protect her against "Crowner's quest law" thus administered? And what is to be thought of educated and responsible public men in England who, as recent events have shown, are not ashamed to go to "Crowner's quest Courts" of this sort for weapons of attack, not upon the administration only of their own Government, but upon the character and the motives of their political opponents?



CHAPTER XVI.

BELFAST, Monday, June 25.—I left Dublin yesterday at 4 P.M., in a train which went off at high pressure as an "express," but came into Belfast panting and dilatory as an "excursion." The day was fine, and the line passes through what is reputed to be the most prosperous part of Ireland. In this part of Ireland, too, the fate of the island has been more than once settled by the arbitrament of arms; and if Parliamentary England throws up the sponge in the wrestle with the League, it is probable enough that the old story will come to be told over again here.

At Dundalk the Irish monarchy of the Braces was made and unmade. The plantation of Ulster under James I. clinched the grasp not so much of England as of Scotland upon Ireland, and determined the course of events here through the Great Rebellion. The landing of the Duke of Schomberg at Carrickfergus opened the way for the subjugation of Jacobite Ireland by William of Orange. The successful descent of the French upon the same place in February 1760, after the close of "the Great Year," in which Walpole tells us he came to expect a new victory every morning with the rolls for breakfast, and after Hawke had broken the strength of the great French Armada off Belleisle, and done for England the service which Nelson did for her again off Trafalgar in 1805, shows what might have happened had Thurot commanded the fleet of Conflans. In this same region, too, the rout of Munro by Nugent at Ballinahinch practically ended the insurrection of 1798.

There are good reasons in the physical geography of the British Islands for this controlling influence of Ulster over the affairs of Ireland, which it seems to me a serious mistake to overlook.

The author of a brief but very hard-headed and practical letter on the pacification of Ireland, which appeared in the Times newspaper in 1886, while the air was thrilling with rumours of Mr. Gladstone's impending appearance as the champion of "Home Rule," carried, I remember, to the account of St. George's Channel "nine-tenths of the troubles, religious, political, and social, under which Ireland has laboured for seven centuries." I cannot help thinking he hit the nail on the head; and St. George's Channel does not divide Ulster from Scotland. From Donaghadee, which has an excellent harbour, the houses on the Scottish coast can easily be made out in clear weather. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and it is as hard to see how, even with the consent of Ulster, the independence of Ireland could be maintained against the interests and the will of Scotland, as it is easy to see why Leinster, Munster, and Connaught have been so difficult of control and assimilation by England. To dream of establishing the independence of Ireland against the will of Ulster appears to me to be little short of madness.

At Moira, which stands very prettily above the Ulster Canal, a small army of people returning from a day in the country to Belfast came upon us and trebled the length of our train. We picked up more at Lisburn, where stands the Cathedral Church of Jeremy Taylor, the "Shakespeare of divines." Here my only companion in the compartment from Dublin left me, a most kindly, intelligent Ulster man, who had very positive views as to the political situation. He much commended the recent discourse in Scotland of a Presbyterian minister, who spoke of the Papal Decree as "pouring water on a drowned mouse," a remark which led me to elicit the fact that he had never seen either Clare or Kerry; and he was very warm in his admiration of Mr. Chamberlain. He told me, what I had heard from many other men of Ulster, that the North had armed itself thoroughly when the Home Rule business began with Mr. Gladstone. "I am a Unionist," he said, "but I think the Union is worth as much to England as it is to Ireland, and if England means to break it up it is not the part of Irishmen who think and feel as I do to let her choose her own time for doing it, and stand still while she robs us of our property and turns us out defenceless to be trampled under foot by the most worthless vagabonds in our own island." He thinks the National League has had its death-blow. "What I fear now," he said, "is that we are running straight into a social war, and that will never be a war against the landlords in Ireland; it'll be a war against the Protestants and all the decent people there are among the Catholics."

He was very cordial when he found I was an American, and with that offhand hospitality which seems to know no distinctions of race or religion in Ireland urged me to come and make him a visit at a place he has nearer the sea-coast. "I'll show you Downpatrick," he said, "where the tombs of St. Patrick and St. Bridget and St. Columb are, the saints sleeping quite at their ease, with a fine prosperous Presbyterian town all about them. And I'll drive you to Tullymore, where you'll see the most beautiful park, and the finest views from it all the way to the Isle of Man, that are to be seen in all Ireland." He was very much interested in the curious story of the sequestration of the remains of Mr. Stewart of New York, who was born, he tells me, at Lisburn, where the wildest fabrications on the subject seem to have got currency. That this feat of body-snatching is supposed to have been performed by a little syndicate of Italians, afterwards broken up by the firmness of Lady Crawford in resisting the ghastly pressure to which the widow and the executors of Mr. Stewart are believed to have succumbed, was quite a new idea to him.

From Moira to Belfast the scenery along the line grows in beauty steadily. If Belfast were not the busiest and most thriving city in Ireland, it would still be well worth a visit for the picturesque charms of its situation and of the scenery which surrounds it. At some future day I hope to get a better notion both of its activity and of its attractions than it would be possible for me to attempt to get in this flying visit, made solely to take the touch of the atmosphere of the place at this season of the year; for we are on the very eve of the battle month of the Boyne.

Mr. Cameron, the Town Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, met me at the station, in accordance with a promise which he kindly made when I saw him several weeks ago at Cork; and this morning he took me all over the city. It is very well laid out, in the new quarters especially, with broad avenues and spacious squares. In fact, as a local wag said to me to-day at the Ulster Club, "You can drive through Belfast without once going into a street"—most of the thoroughfares which are not called "avenues" or "places" being known as "roads." It is, of course, an essentially modern city. When Boate made his survey of Ireland two centuries ago, Belfast was so small a place that he took small note of it, though it had been incorporated by James I. in 1613 in favour of the Chichester family, still represented here. In a very careful Tour in Ireland, published at Dublin in 1780, the author says of Belfast, "I could not help remarking the great number of Scots who reside in this place, and who carry on a good trade with Scotland." It seems then to have had a population of less than 20,000 souls, as it only touched that number at the beginning of this century. It has since then advanced by "leaps and bounds," after an almost American fashion, till it has now become the second, and bids fair at no distant day to become the first, city in Ireland. Few of the American cities which are its true contemporaries can be compared with Belfast in beauty. The quarter in which my host lives was reclaimed from the sea marshes not quite so long ago, I believe, as was the Commonwealth Avenue quarter of Boston, and though it does not show so many costly private houses perhaps as that quarter of the New England capital, its "roads" and "avenues" are on the whole better built, and there is no public building in Boston so imposing as the Queen's College, with its Tudor front six hundred feet in length, and its graceful central tower. The Botanic Gardens near by are much prettier and much better equipped for the pleasure and instruction of the people than any public gardens in either Boston or New York. These American comparisons make themselves, all the conditions of Belfast being rather of the New World than of the Old. The oldest building pointed out to me to-day is the whilom mansion of the Marquis of Donegal, now used as offices, and still called the Castle.

This stands near Donegal Square, a fine site, disfigured by a quadrangle of commonplace brick buildings, occupied as a sort of Linen Exchange, concerning which a controversy rages, I am told. They are erected on land granted by Lord Donegal to encourage the linen trade, and the buildings used to be leased at a rental of L1 per window. The present holders receive L10 per window, and are naturally loath to part with so good a thing, though there is an earnest desire in the city to see these unsightly structures removed, and their place taken by stately municipal buildings more in key with the really remarkable and monumental private warehouses which already adorn this Square. Mr. Robinson, one of the partners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, was good enough to show us over it. It is built of a warm grey stone, which lends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth of carving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers of Flanders lavished on their public buildings. The interior arrangements are worthy of the external stateliness of the warehouse. Pneumatic tubes for the delivery of cash—a Scottish invention—electric lights, steam lifts, a kitchen at the top of the lofty edifice heated by steam from the great engine-room in the cellars, and furnishing meals to the employees, attest the energy and enterprise of the firm. The most delicate of the linen fabrics sold here are made, I was informed, all over the north country. The looms, three or four of which are kept going here in a great room to show the intricacy and perfection of the processes, are supplied by the firm to the hand-workers on a system which enables them, while earning good wages from week to week, to acquire the eventual ownership of the machines. The building is crowned by a sort of observatory, from which we enjoyed a noble prospect overlooking the whole city and miles of the beautiful country around. A haze on the horizon hid the coast of Scotland, which is quite visible under a clear sky. The Queen's Bridge over the Lagan, built in 1842 between Antrim and Down, was a conspicuous feature in the panorama. Its five great arches of hewn granite span the distance formerly traversed by an older bridge of twenty-one arches 840 feet in length, which was begun in 1682, and finished just in time to welcome Schomberg and King William.

The not less imposing warehouse of Richardson and Co., built of a singularly beautiful brown stone, and decorated with equal taste and liberality, adjoins that of Robinson and Cleaver. The banks, the public offices, the clubs, the city library, the museum, the Presbyterian college, the principal churches, all of them modern, all alike bear witness to the public spirit and pride in their town of the good people of Belfast. With more time at my disposal I would have been very glad to visit some of the flax-mills called into being by the great impulse which the cotton famine resulting from our Civil War gave to the linen manufactures of Northern Ireland, and the famous shipyards of the Woolfs on Queen's Island, As things are, it was more to my purpose to see some of the representative men of this great Protestant stronghold.

I passed a very interesting hour with the Rev. Dr. Hanna, who is reputed to be a sort of clerical "Lion of the North," and whom I found to be in almost all respects a complete antitype of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore.

Dr. Hanna is not unjustly proud of being at the head of the most extensive Sunday-school organisation in Ireland, if not in the world; and I find that the anniversary parade of his pupils, appointed for Saturday, June 30th, is looked forward to with some anxiety by the authorities here. He tells me that he expects to put two thousand children that day into motion for a grand excursion to Moira; but although he speaks very plainly as to the ill-will with which a certain class of the Catholics here regard both himself and his organisation, he does not anticipate any attack from them. With what seems to me very commendable prudence, he has resolved this year to put this procession into the streets without banners and bands, so that no charge of provocation may be even colourably advanced against it. This is no slight concession from a man so determined and so outspoken, not to say aggressive, in his Protestantism as Dr. Hanna; and the Nationalist Catholics will be very ill-advised, it strikes me, if they misinterpret it.

He spoke respectfully of the Papal decree against Boycotting and the Plan of Campaign; but he seems to think it will not command the respect of the masses of the Catholic population, nor be really enforced by the clergy. Like most of the Ulstermen I have met, he has a firm faith, not only in the power of the Protestant North to protect itself, but in its determination to protect itself against the consequences which the northern Protestants believe must inevitably follow any attempt to establish an Irish nationality. Dr. Hanna is neither an Orangeman nor a Tory. He says there are but three known Orangemen among the clerical members of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church, which unanimously pronounced against Mr. Gladstone's scheme of Home Rule, and not more than a dozen Tories. Of the 550 members of the Assembly, 538, he says, were followers of Mr. Gladstone before he adopted the politics of Mr. Parnell; and only three out of the whole number have given him their support. In the country at large, Dr. Hanna puts down the Unionists at two millions, of whom 1,200,000 are Protestants, and 800,000 Catholics; and he maintains that if the Parliamentary representatives were chosen by a general vote, the Parnellite 80 would be cut down to 62; while the Unionists would number 44. He regards the Parnellite policy as "an organised imposture," and firmly believes that an Irish Parliament in Dublin would now mean civil war in Ireland. He had a visit here last week, he says, from an American Presbyterian minister, who came out to Ireland a month ago a "Home Ruler"; but, as the result of a trip through North-Western Ireland, is going back to denounce the Home Rule movement as a mischievous fraud.

When I asked him what remedy he would propose for the discontent stirred up by the agitation of Home Rule, this Presbyterian clergyman replied emphatically, "Balfour, Balfour, and more Balfour!"

This on the ground, as I understood, that Mr. Balfour's administration of the law has been the firmest, least wavering, and most equitable known in Ireland for many a day.

Later in the day I had the pleasure of a conversation with the Rev. Dr. Kane, the Grand Master of the Orangemen at Belfast. Dr. Kane is a tall, fine-looking, frank, and resolute man, who obviously has the courage of his opinions. He thinks there will be no disturbances this year on the 12th of July, but that the Orange demonstrations will be on a greater scale and more imposing than ever. He derides the notion that "Parnellism" is making any progress in Ulster. On the contrary, the concurrence this year of the anniversary of the defeat of the Great Armada with the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 has aroused the strongest feelings of enthusiasm among the Protestants of the North, and they were never so determined as they now are not to tolerate anything remotely looking to the constitution of a separate and separatist Government at Dublin.

BELFAST, Tuesday, June 26.—Sir John Preston, the head of one of the great Belfast houses, and a former Mayor of the city, dined with us last night, and in the evening Sir James Haslett, the actual Mayor, came in.

I find that in Belfast the office of Mayor is served without a salary, and is consequently filled as a rule by citizens of "weight and instance." In Dublin the Lord Mayor receives L3000 a year, with a contingent fund of L1500, and the office is becoming a distinctly political post. The face of Belfast is so firmly set against the tendency to subordinate municipal interests to general party exigencies, that the Corporation compelled Mr. Cobain, M.P., who sits at Westminster now for this constituency, to resign the post which he held as treasurer and cashier of the Corporation when he became a candidate for a seat in Parliament. I am not surprised, therefore, to learn that the city rates and taxes are much lower in the commercial than they are in the political capital of Ireland.

Both Sir John Preston and Sir James Haslett have visited America. Sir John went there to represent the linen industries of Ireland, and to urge upon Congress the propriety of reducing our import duties upon fabrics which the American climate makes it practically imposssible to manufacture on our side of the water. Senator Sherman, who twenty years ago had the candour to admit that the wit of man could not devise a tariff so adjusted as to raise the revenue necessary for the Government which should not afford adequate incidental protection to all legitimate American industries, gave Sir John reason to hope that something might be done in the direction of a more liberal treatment of the linen industries. But nothing practical came of it. Sir John ought to have known that our typical American Protectionist, the late Horace Greeley, really persuaded himself, and tried to persuade other people, that with duties enough clapped on the Asiatic production, excellent tea might be grown on the uplands of South Carolina!

In former years Sir John Preston used to visit Gweedore every year for sport and recreation. He knew Lord George Hill very well, "as true and noble a man as ever lived, who stinted himself to improve the state of his tenants." He threw an odd light on the dreamy desire which had so much amused me of the "beauty of Gweedore" to become "a dressmaker at Derry," by telling me that long ago the gossips there used to tell wonderful stories of a Gweedore girl who had made her fortune as a milliner in the "Maiden City."

This morning Mr. Cameron, who as Town Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary will be responsible for public peace and order here during the next critical fortnight, held a review of his men on a common beyond the Theological College. About two hundred and fifty of the force were paraded, with about twenty mounted policemen, and for an hour and a half, under a tolerably warm sun, they were put through a regular military drill. A finer body of men cannot be seen, and in point of discipline and training they can hold their own, I should say, with the best of her Majesty's regiments. Without such discipline and training it would not be easy for any such body of men to pass with composure through the ordeal of insults and abuse to which the testimony of trustworthy eye-witnesses compels me to believe they are habitually subjected in the more disturbed districts of Ireland. As to the immediate outlook here, Mr. Cameron seems quite at his ease. Even if ill-disposed persons should set about provoking a collision between "the victors and the vanquished of the Boyne" his arrangements are so made, he says, as to prevent the development of anything like the outbreaks of former years.

On the advice of Sir John Preston I shall take the Fleetwood route on my return to London to-night.

This secures one a comfortable night on board of a very good and well-equipped boat, from which you go ashore, he tells me, into an excellent station of the London and North-Western Railway at Fleetwood, on the mouth of the Wyre on the Lancashire coast. Twenty years ago this was a small bathing resort called into existence chiefly by the enterprise of a local baronet whose name it bears. Its present prosperity and prospective importance are another illustration of the vigour and vitality of the North of Ireland, which is connected through Fleetwood with the great manufacturing regions of middle and northern England, as it is through Larne with the heart of Scotland.

While it is as true now of the predominantly Catholic south of Ireland as it was when Sir Robert Peel made the remark forty years ago, that it stands "with its back to England and its face to the West," this Protestant Ireland of the North faces both ways, drawing Canada and the United States to itself through Moville and Derry and Belfast, and holding fast at the same time upon the resources of Great Britain through Glasgow and Liverpool. One of the best informed bankers in London told me not long ago, that pretty nearly all the securities of the great company which has recently taken over the business of the Guinnesses have already found their way into the North of Ireland and are held here. With such resources in its wealth and industry, better educated, better equipped, and holding a practically impregnable position in the North of Ireland, with Scotland and the sea at its back, Ulster is very much stronger relatively to the rest of Ireland than La Vendee was relatively to the rest of the French Republic in the last century. In a struggle for independence against the rest of Ireland it would have nothing to fear from the United States, where any attempt to organise hostilities against it would put the Irish-American population in serious peril, not only from the American Government, but from popular feeling, and force home upon the attention of the quickest-witted people in the world the significant fact that while the chief contributions, so far, of America to Southern Ireland, have been alms and agitation, the chief contributions of Scotland to Northern Ireland have been skilled agriculture and successful activity. It is surely not without meaning that the only steamers of Irish build which now traverse the Atlantic come from the dockyards, not of Galway nor of Cork, the natural gateways of Ireland to the west, but of Belfast, the natural gateway of Ireland to the north.



EPILOGUE.

Not once, but a hundred times, during the visits to Ireland recorded in this book, I have been reminded of the state of feeling and opinion which existed in the Border States, as they were called, of the American Union, after the invasion of Virginia by a piratical band under John Brown, and before the long-pending issues between the South, insisting upon its constitutional rights, and the North, restive under its constitutional obligations, were brought to a head by the election of President Lincoln.

All analogies, I know, are deceptive, and I do not insist upon this analogy. But it has a certain value here. For to-day in Ireland, as then in America, we find a grave question of politics, in itself not unmanageable, perhaps, by a race trained to self-government, seriously complicated and aggravated, not only by considerations of moral right and moral wrong, but by a profound perturbation of the material interests of the community.

I well remember that after a careful study of the situation in America at the time of which I speak, Mr. Nassau Senior, a most careful and competent observer, frankly told me that he saw no possible way in which the problem could be worked out peacefully. The event justified this gloomy forecast.

It would be presumptuous in me to say as much of the actual situation in Ireland; but it would be uncandid not to say that the optimists of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee had greater apparent odds in their favour in 1861 than the optimists of Ireland seem to me to have in 1888.

Ireland stands to-day between Great Britain and the millions of the Irish race in America and Australia very much as the Border States of the American Union stood in 1861 between the North and the South. There was little either in the Tariff question or in the Slavery question to shake the foundations of law and order in the Border States, could they have been left to themselves; and the Border States enjoyed all the advantages and immunities of "Home Rule" to an extent and under guarantees never yet openly demanded for Ireland by any responsible legislator within the walls of the British Parliament. But so powerful was the leverage upon them of conflicting passions and interests beyond their own borders that these sovereign states, well organised, homogeneous, prosperous communities, much more populous and richer in the aggregate in 1861 than Ireland is to-day, practically lost the control of their own affairs, and were swept helplessly into a terrific conflict, which they had the greatest imaginable interest in avoiding, and no interest whatever in promoting.

I have seen and heard nothing in Ireland to warrant the very common impression that the country, as a whole, is either misgoverned or ungovernable; nothing to justify me in regarding the difficulties which there impede the maintenance of law and order as really indigenous and spontaneous. The "agitated" Ireland of 1888 appears to me to be almost as clearly and demonstrably the creation of forces not generated in, but acting upon, a country, as was the "bleeding Kansas" of 1856. But the "bleeding Kansas" of 1856 brought the great American Union to the verge of disruption, and the "agitated Ireland" of 1888 may do as much, or worse, for the British Empire. There is, no doubt, a great deal of distress in one or another part of Ireland, though it has not been my fortune to come upon any outward and visible signs of such grinding misery as forces itself upon you in certain of the richest provinces of that independent, busy, prosperous, Roman Catholic kingdom of Belgium, which on a territory little more than one-third as large as the territory of Ireland, maintains nearly a million more inhabitants, and adds to its population, on an average, in round numbers, as many people in four years as Ireland loses in five.

I have seen peasant proprietors in Flanders and Brabant who could give the ideal Irish agent of the Nationalist newspapers lessons in rack-renting, though I am not at all sure that they might not get a hint or two themselves from some of the small farmers who came in my way in Ireland.

Like all countries, mainly agricultural, too, Ireland has suffered a great deal of late years from the fall in prices following upon a period of intoxicating prosperity. Whether she has suffered more relatively than we should have suffered from the same cause in America, had we been foolish enough to imitate the monometallic policy of Germany in 1873, is however open to question; and I have an impression, which it will require evidence to remove, that the actual organisation known as the National Land League could never have been called into being had the British Government devoted to action upon the Currency Question, before 1879, the time and energy which it has expended before and since that date in unsettling the principles of free contract, and tinkering at the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland.

But I am trenching upon inquiries here beyond the province of this book.

Fortunately it is not necessary to my object in printing these volumes that I should either form or formulate any positive opinions as to the origin of the existing crisis in Ireland. Nor need I volunteer any suggestions of my own as to the methods by which order may best be maintained and civil government carried on in Ireland. It suffices for me that I close this self-imposed survey of men and things in that country with a conviction, as positive as it is melancholy, that the work which Mr. Redmond, M.P., informed us at Chicago that he and his Nationalist colleagues had undertaken, of "making the government of Ireland by England impossible," has been so far achieved, and by such methods as to make it extremely doubtful whether Ireland can be governed by anybody at all in accordance with any of the systems of government hitherto recognised in or adopted for that country. I certainly can see nothing in the organisation and conduct, down to this time, of the party known as the party of the Irish Nationalists, I will not say to encourage, but even to excuse, a belief that Ireland could be governed as a civilised country were it turned over to-morrow to their control. A great deal has been done by them to propagate throughout Christendom a general impression that England has dismally failed to govern Ireland in the past, and is unlikely hereafter to succeed in governing Ireland. But even granting this impression to be absolutely well founded, it by no means follows that Ireland is any more capable of governing herself than England is of governing her. The Russians have not made a brilliant success of their administration in Poland, but the Poles certainly administered Poland no better than the Russians have done. With an Irish representation in an Imperial British Parliament at Westminster, Ireland, under Mr. Gladstone's "base and blackguard" Union of 1800, has at least succeeded in shaking off some of the weightiest of the burdens by which, in the days of Swift, of Grattan, and of O'Connell, she most loudly declared herself to be oppressed. Whether with a Parliament at Dublin she would have fared as well in this respect since 1800 must be a matter of conjecture merely—and it must be equally a matter of conjecture also whether she would fare any better in this respect with a Parliament at Dublin hereafter. I am in no position to pronounce upon this—but it is quite certain that nothing is more uncommon than to find an educated and intelligent man, not an active partisan, in Ireland to-day, who looks forward to the reestablishment, in existing circumstances, of a Parliament at Dublin with confidence or hope.

How the establishment of such a Parliament would affect the position of Great Britain as a power in Europe, and how it would affect the fiscal policy, and with the fiscal policy the well-being of the British people, are questions for British subjects to consider, not for me.

That the processes employed during the past decade, and now employed to bring about the establishment of such a Parliament, have been, and are in their nature, essentially revolutionary, subversive of all sound and healthy relations between man and man, inconsistent with social stability, and therefore with social progress and with social peace, what I have seen and heard in Ireland during the past six months compels me to feel. Of the "Coercion," under which the Nationalist speakers and writers ask us in America to believe that the island groans and travails, I have seen literally nothing.

Nowhere in the world is the press more absolutely free than to-day in Ireland. Nowhere in the world are the actions of men in authority more bitterly and unsparingly criticised. If public men or private citizens are sent to prison in Ireland, they are sent there, not as they were in America during the civil war, or in Ireland under the "Coercion Act" of 1881, on suspicion of something they may have done, or may have intended to do, but after being tried for doing, and convicted of having done, certain things made offences against the law by a Parliament in which they are represented, and of which, in some cases, they are members.

To call this "Coercion" is, from the American point of view, simply ludicrous. What it may be from the British or the Irish point of view is another affair, and does not concern me. I may be permitted, however, I hope without incivility, to say that if this be "Coercion" from the British or the Irish point of view, I am well content to be an American citizen. Ours is essentially a government not of emotions, but of statutes, and most Americans, I think, will agree with me that the sage was right who declared it to be better to live where nothing is lawful than where all things are lawful.

The "Coercion" which I have found established in Ireland, and which I recognise in the title of this book, is the "Coercion," not of a government, but of a combination to make a particular government impossible. It is a "Coercion" applied not to men who break a public law, or offend against any recognised code of morals, but to men who refuse to be bound in their personal relations and their business transactions by the will of other men, their equals only, clothed with no legal authority over them. It is a "Coercion" administered not by public and responsible functionaries, but by secret tribunals. Its sanctions are not the law and honest public opinion, but the base instinct of personal cowardice, and the instinct, not less base, of personal greed. Whether anything more than a steady, firm administration of the law is needed to abolish this "Coercion" is a matter as to which authorities differ. I should be glad to believe with Colonel Saunderson that "the Leaguers would not hold up the 'land-grabber' to execration, and denounce him as they do, unless they knew in fact that the moment the law is made supreme in Ireland the tenants would become just as amenable to it as any other subjects of the Queen." But some recent events suggest a doubt whether these "other subjects of the Queen" are as amenable to the law as my own countrymen are.

That the Church to which the great majority of the Irish people have for so many ages, and through so many tribulations, borne steadfast allegiance, has been shaken in its hold upon the conscience of Ireland by the machinery of this odious and ignoble "Coercion," appears to me to be unquestionable. That the head of that Church, being compelled by evidence to believe this, has found it necessary to intervene for the restoration of the just spiritual authority of the Church over the Irish people all the world now knows—nor can I think that his intervention has come a day or an hour too soon, to arrest the progress in Ireland of a social disease which threatens, not the political interests of the empire of which Ireland is a part alone, but the character of the Irish people themselves, and the very existence among them of the elementary conditions of a Christian civilisation.

It would be unjust to the Irish people to forget that this demoralising "Coercion" against which the Head of the Catholic Church has declared war, seems to me to have been seriously reinforced by the Land Legislation of the Imperial Parliament.

No one denies that great reforms and readjustments of the Land Tenure in Ireland needed to be made long before any serious attempt was made to make them.

But that such reforms and readjustments might have been made without cutting completely loose from the moorings of political economy, appears pretty clearly, not only from examples on the continent of Europe, and in my own country, but from the Rent and Tenancy Acts carried out in India under the viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin since 1885. The conditions of these measures were different, of course, in each of the cases of Oudh, Bengal, and the Punjab, and in none of these cases were they nearly identical with the conditions of any practicable land measure for Ireland. But two great characteristics seem to me to mark the Indian legislation, which are not conspicuous in the legislation for Ireland.

These are a spirit of equity as between the landlords and the tenants, and finality. I do not see how it can be questioned that the landlords of Ireland have been dealt with by recent British legislation as if they were offenders to be mulcted, and that the tenants in Ireland have been encouraged by recent British legislation to anticipate an eventual transfer to them, on steadily improving terms, of the land-ownership of the island. Mr. Davitt is perhaps the most popular Irishman living, and I believe him to be sincerely convinced that the ownership of the land of Ireland (and of all other countries) ought to be vested in the State. But if the independence of Ireland were acknowledged by Great Britain to-morrow, and all the actual landlords of Ireland were compelled to-morrow to part with their ownership, such as it is, of the land, I believe Mr. Davitt would be further from the recognition and triumph of his principle of State-ownership than he is to-day with a British Parliament hostile to "Home Rule," but apparently not altogether unwilling to make the landlords of Ireland an acceptable burnt-offering upon the altar of imperial unity. Probably he sees this himself, and the existing state of things may not be wholly displeasing to him, as holding out a hope that the flame which he has been helped by British legislation to kindle in Ireland may already be taking hold upon the substructions and outworks of the edifice of property in Great Britain also.

One thing at least is clear.

The two antagonistic principles which confront each other in Ireland to-day are the principles of the Agrarian Revolution represented by Mr. Davitt, and the principle of Authority, represented in the domain of politics by the British Government, and in the domain of morals by the Vatican. With one or the other of these principles the victory must rest. If the Irish people of all classes who live in Ireland could be polled to-day, it is likely enough that a decisive majority of them would declare for the principle of Authority in the State and in the Church, could that over-riding issue be made perfectly plain and intelligible to them. But how is that possible? In what country of the world, and in what age of the world, has it ever been possible to get such an issue made perfectly plain and intelligible to any people?

In the domain of morals the principle of Authority, so far as concerns Catholic Ireland, rests with a power which is not likely to waver or give way. The Papal Decree has gone forth. Those who profess to accept it will be compelled to obey it. Those who reject it, whatever their place in the hierarchy of the Church may be, must sooner or later find themselves where Dr. M'Glynn of New York now is. Catholic Ireland can only continue to be Catholic on the condition of obedience, not formal but real, not in matters indifferent, but in matters vital and important, to the Head of the Catholic Church.

In the domain of politics the principle of Authority rests with an Administration which is at the mercy of the intelligence or the ignorance, the constancy or the fickleness, the weakness or the strength, of constituencies in Great Britain, not necessarily familiar with the facts of the situation in Ireland, not necessarily enlightened as to the real interests either of Great Britain or of Ireland, nor even necessarily awake, with Cardinal Manning, to the truth that upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire.

With two, three, four, or five years of a steady and cool administration of the laws in Ireland, by an executive officer such as Mr. Balfour seems to me to have shown himself to be—with a judicious abstinence of the British Legislature from feverish and fussy legislation about Ireland, with a prudent and persistent development of the material resources of Ireland, and with a genuine co-operation of the people who own land in Ireland with the people who wish to own land in Ireland, for the readjustment of land-ownership, the principle of Authority in the domain of politics may doubtless win in the conflict with the principle of the Agrarian revolution.

But how many contingencies are here involved! Meanwhile the influences which imperil in Ireland the principle of Authority, in the domains alike of politics and of morals, are at work incessantly, to undermine and deteriorate the character of the Irish people, to take the vigour and the manhood out of them, to unfit them day by day, not only for good citizenship in the British Empire or the United States, but for good citizenship in any possible Ireland under any possible form of government. To arrest these influences before they bring on in Ireland a social crash, the effects of which must be felt far beyond the boundaries of that country, is a matter of primary importance, doubtless, to the British people. It is a matter, too, of hardly less than primary importance to the people of my own country. Unfortunately it does not rest with us to devise or to apply an efficient check to these influences.

That rests with the people of Great Britain, so long as they insist that Ireland shall remain an integral portion of the British dominions. I do not see how they can acquit themselves of this responsibility, or escape the consequences of evading it, solely by devising the most ingenious machinery of local administration for Ireland, or the most liberal schemes for fostering the material interests of the Irish people. Such things, of course, must in due time be attended to. But the first duty of a government is to govern; and I believe that Earl Grey has summed up the situation in Ireland more concisely and more courageously than any other British statesman in his outspoken declaration, that "in order to avert the wreck of the nation, it is absolutely necessary that some means or other should be found for securing to Ireland during the present crisis a wiser and more stable administration of its affairs than can be looked for under its existing institutions."

I have heard and read a good deal in the past of the "Three F's" thought a panacea for Irish discontent. Three other F's seem to me quite as important to the future of Irish content and public order. These are, Fair Dealing towards Landlords as well as Tenants; Finality of Agrarian Legislation at Westminster; and last and most essential of all, Fixity of Executive Tenure.

The words I have just quoted of Earl Grey, show it to be the conviction of the oldest living leader of English Liberalism that this last is the vital point, the key of the situation. Let me bracket with his words, and leave to the consideration of my readers, the following pregnant passage from a letter written to me by an Irish correspondent who is as devoted to Irish independence as is Earl Grey to imperial unity:—

"If the present Nationalist movement succeeds, it will have the effect of putting the worst elements of the Irish nation in power, and keeping them there irremoveably. We are to have an Executive at the mercy of a House of Representatives, and the result will be a government, or series of governments, as weak and vicious as those of France, with this difference, that here all purifying changes such as seem imminent in France will be absolutely prevented by the irresistible power of England. The true model for us would be a constitution like yours in the United States, with an Executive responsible to the nation at large, and irremoveable for a term of years. But this we shall never get from England. Shall we make use of Home Rule to take it for ourselves?

"Many earnest and active Irish Unionists now say that if any bill resembling Mr. Gladstone's passes, they will make separation, their definite policy. If Home Rule comes without the landlords having been bought out on reasonable terms, a class will be created in Ireland full of bitter and most just hatred of England—a class which may very likely one day play the part here which the persecuted Irish Presbyterians who fled from the tyranny of the English Church in Ireland played in your own Revolution beyond the Atlantic."

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APPENDIX.

NOTE F.

THE "MOONLIGHTERS" AND "HOME RULE."

(Vol. ii. p. 38.)

On Monday, the 1st of February 1886, the Irish Times published the following story from Tralee, near the scene of the "boycotting," temporal and spiritual, of the unfortunate daughters of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, murdered in his own house by "moonlighters":—

"TRALEE, Sunday.

"It was stated that the bishop had ordered Mass to be celebrated for them—the Curtins—but this did not take place. At the village of Firies a number of people had assembled. They stopped loitering about the place in the forenoon, waiting for a meeting of the National League, which was subsequently held. A threatening notice was discovered posted up on the door of a house formerly used as a forge. It ran as follows:—

"'NOTICE.—If we are honoured by the presence of the bloodthirsty perjurers at Mass on any of the forthcoming Sundays, take good care you'll stand up very politely and walk out. Don't be under the impression that all the Moonlighters are dead, and that this notice is a child's play, as Shawn Nelleen titled the last one. I'll be sure to keep my word, as you will see before long, so have no welcome for the Curtins, and, above all, let no one work for them in any way. As you respect the Captain, and as you value your own life, abide by this notice.'—Signed, 'A MOONLIGHTER.'

"The above notice was written on tea paper in large legible style, and evidently by an intelligent person. Groups were perusing it during the day. A force of police marched through the village and back, but did not observe this document, as it is still posted on the door of the house."

The "bloodthirsty perjurers" here mentioned were the daughters who had dared to demand and to promote the punishment of the assassins of their father! For this crime these daughters were to be excommunicated by the people of Firies, and denied the consolations of religion in their deep sorrow, even in defiance of the order of the Catholic bishop.

As the advent of Mr. Gladstone to power in alliance with Mr. Parnell was then imminent, Mr. Sheehan, M.P., wrote a letter to the parish priest of Firies, the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, begging him in substance to put the brakes—for a time—upon the wheels of the local rack, lest the outcries of the young women subjected to this moral torture should interfere with the success of the new alliance. This, in plain English, is the only possible meaning of the letter which I here reprint from a leaflet issued by an Irish society:—

"The Rev. Father O'Connor, P.P., has received the following letter from Mr. Sheehau, M.P., in reference to this matter, under date

"'House of Commons, January 26th.

"'REV. DEAR SIR,—At this important juncture in our history, I am sorry to see reports of the Firies display. Nothing that has taken place yet in the South of Ireland has done so much harm to the National cause. If they persist they will ruin us. To-morrow evening will be most important in Parliamentary history. Our party expect the defeat of the Government and resumption of power by Mr. Gladstone. If we succeed in this, which we are confident of, the future of our country will be great, and, although an appeal to the constituencies must be made, the Irish party in those few days have made an impression in future that no Government can withstand. The Salisbury Government want to appeal to the country on the integrity of the empire, and, of course, for the last few days have tried all means to lead to this by raking up the Curtin case and all judicial cases, which must be avoided for a short time, as our stoppage to the Eviction Act will cover all this.—Yours faithfully, J.D. SHEEHAN.'"

This letter was read, the leaflet informs us, by the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, at the National Schools and other places.



NOTE G.

THE PONSONBY PROPERTY.

(Vol. ii. pp. 59-66.)

The account which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of "The Struggle for Life on the Ponsonby Estate," in a tract bearing that title, and authorised by him to be published by the National League, is so circumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I took unusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of the landlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonby himself, who was so kind as to call upon me in London on the 15th of May, with papers and documents. I give in the following colloquy the results of this interview, putting together with the allegations of Canon Keller the answers of Mr. Ponsonby, and leave the matter in this form to the judgment of my readers.

Q. Canon Keller, I see, describes you, Mr. Ponsonby, as "a retired navy officer, and an absentee Irish landlord." He says your estate is now "universally known as the famous Ponsonby Estate," and that it is occupied "by from 300 to 400 tenants, holding farms varying in extent from an acre and a half to over two hundred acres." Are these statements correct?

A. I am a retired navy officer certainly, and perhaps I may be called an "absentee Irish landlord." I lived on my property for some time, and I have always attended to it. I succeeded to the estate in 1868, and almost my first act was to borrow L2000 of the Board of Works for drainage purposes—the tenants agreeing to pay half the interest. As a matter of fact some never paid at all, and I afterwards wiped out the claims against them. There are about 300 tenants on the property, and the average holdings are of about 36 acres, at an average rental of L30 a holding. There are, however, not a few large farms.

Q. Canon Keller says that "in the memory of living witnesses, and far beyond it, the Ponsonby tenants have been notoriously rack-rented and oppressed"; and that they have been committed to the "tender mercies of agents, seeing little or nothing of their landlord, and experiencing no practical sympathy from that quarter." How is this?

A. I wish to believe Canon Keller truthful when he knows the truth. He certainly does not know the truth here. He is a newcomer at Youghal, having come there in November 1885, and hardly so much of an authority about "the memory of living witnesses and far beyond it" as the tenants on the estate, who, when I went there first with my wife, presented to me, May 25, 1868, an address of welcome, referring in very different terms to the history of the estate and of my family connection with it. Here is the original address, and a copy of it—the latter being quite at your service.

This original address is very handsomely engrossed, and is signed by fifty tenants. Among the names I observed those of Martin Loughlin, Peter McDonough, Michael Gould, William Forrest, and John Heaphey, all of whom are cited by Canon Keller in his tract as conspicuous victims of the oppression and rack-renting which he says have prevailed upon the Ponsonby estates time out of mind. It was rather surprising, therefore, to find them joining with more than forty other tenants to sign an address, of which I here print the text:—

To C.W. TALBOT PONSONBY, Esq.

Honoured Sir,—The Tenantry of your Estates near Youghal have heard with extreme pleasure of the arrival of yourself and lady in the neighbourhood, and have deputed us to address you on their behalf.

Through us they bid you and Mrs. Ponsonby welcome, and respectfully congratulate you on your accession to the Estates.

The name of Ponsonby is traditionally revered in this part of the country, being associated in the recollections and impressions of the people with all that is exalted, honourable, and generous. It has been matter of regret that the heads of the family have not (probably from uncontrollable causes) visited these Estates for many years, but the tenantry have never wavered in their sentiments of respect towards them.

We will not disguise from you the conviction generally entertained that the improvement of landed property, and the condition of its occupiers, is best promoted under the personal observation and supervision of the proprietor, and your tenantry on that account hail with satisfaction the promise your presence affords of future intercourse between you and them.

Again, on the part of your Tenants and all connected with your Estates, tendering you and your lady a most hearty welcome, and sincerely wishing you and her a long and happy career—We subscribe ourselves, Honoured Sir, Respectfully yours,

YOUGHAL, May 1868.

Q. Did Canon Keller ever see this address, may I ask, Mr. Ponsonby?

A. I believe not; and I may as well say at once that I suppose he has taken for gospel all the stories which any of the tenants under the terrorism which has been established on the place think it best to pour into his listening ear. As I have said, he is quite a new man at Youghal, and when he first came there he was a quiet and not at all revolutionary priest. You saw him, and saw how good his manners are, and that he is a well-educated man. But on Sunday, November 7, 1886, a great meeting was held at Youghal. It was a queer meeting for a Sunday, being openly a political meeting, with banners and bands, to hear speeches from Mr. Lane, M.P., Mr. Flynn, M.P., and others. The Rev. Mr. Keller presided, and a priest from America, Father Hayes of Georgetown, Iowa, in the United States, was present. It was ostensibly a Home Rule meeting, but the burden of the speeches was agrarian. Mr. Lane, M.P., made a bitter personal attack on another Nationalist member, Sir Joseph M'Kenna of Killeagh, calling him a "heartless and inhuman landlord;" and my property was also attended to by Mr. Lane, who advised my tenants openly not to accept my offer of 20 per cent. reduction, but to demand 40 per cent. Father Hayes in his speech bade "every man stand to his guns," and wound up by declaring that if England and the landlords behaved in America as they behaved in Ireland, the Americans "would pelt them not only with dynamite, but with the lightnings of Heaven and the fires of hell, till every British bull-dog, whelp, and cur would be pulverised and made top-dressing for the soil." Canon Keller afterwards expressed disapproval of this speech of Hayes, and this coming to the knowledge of Hayes in America, Hayes denounced Keller for not daring to do this at the time in his presence. Since then Canon Keller has been much more violent in tone.

Q. I don't want to carry you through a long examination, Mr. Ponsonby, but I see typical cases here, about which I should like to ask a question or two. Here, is Callaghan Flavin, for instance, described by Canon Keller as one of eight tenants who "had to retreat before the crowbar brigade," and who "deserved a better fate." Canon Keller says he is assured by a competent judge that Flavin's improvements, "full value for L341, 10s.," are now "the landlord's property." What are the facts about Mr. Flavin?

A. Mr. Flavin's farm was held by his cousin, Ellen Flavin of Gilmore, who, on the 7th of February 1872, surrendered it to the landlord on receiving from me a sum of L172, 10s. 6d. I obtained a charging order under section 27 of the Land Act, entitling me to an annuity of L8, 12s. 6d. for thirty-five years from July 3, 1872. It was let to Callaghan Flavin in preference to other applicants, July 3, 1872; and in 1873, at his request, I obtained a loan from the Board of Works for the thorough draining of a portion of the farm. Thirteen acres were drained at a cost of L84, 6s. 3d., for which the tenant promised to pay 5 per cent. interest, which I eventually forgave him. There was no house on the farm. He took it without one, and I did not want one there. He built a house himself without consulting my agent, and then wanted me to make him an allowance for it. I told him he had thirty-one years to enjoy it in, and must be content with that. About the same time he took another farm of mine at a rent of L35. Since I came into my property in 1868 I have laid out upon it in drainage, buildings, and planting—here are the accounts, which you may look at—over L15,000, including about L8000 of loans from the Board of Works. In the drainage the tenants got work for which they were paid. I gave them slates for the buildings, with timber and stone from the estate, and they supplied the labour. There is no case in which the outlays for improvements came from the tenants—not a single one. I repeat it, Canon Keller's tract is a tissue of fictions.

What nonsense it is to talk about the "traditional rack-renting" of a property held by the Ponsonbys for two hundred years, the tenants on which could welcome me when I came into it with the language of the address you have here seen!

I never evicted tenants for less than three years' arrears, till what Canon Keller calls the "crowbar brigade," by which he means the officers of the law, had to be put into action to meet the "Plan of Campaign" in May last. I did not proceed against the tenants because they could not pay. I selected the tenants who could pay, and who were led, or, I believe in most cases, "coerced," into refusing to pay by agitators with Mr. Lane, M.P., to inspire them, and Canon Keller, P.P., to glorify them in a tract.

Q. What were your personal relations with the tenants when you were at Inchiquin?

A. Always most friendly; and even the other day when I was there, while none of them would speak to me when they were all together, those I met individually touched their hats, and were as civil as ever. I believe they would all be thankful to have things as they were, and I have never refused to meet and treat with them on fair individual terms.

In November 1885 my offer of an abatement of 15 per cent. being refused, a few tenants, I believe, clubbed their rents, and for the sake of peace I then offered 20 per cent., which they accepted and paid. In October 1886 I hoped to prevent trouble by making the same offer of 20 per cent. abatement on non-judicial and 10 per cent. on judicial rents. One man took the latter abatement and paid. Then another tenant demanded 40 per cent. My agent said he would give them time, and also take money on account, the effect of which would be to put me out of court, and prevent my getting an order of ejectment if I wanted to for the balance. I thought this fair, and approved it, but I refused to make a 40 per cent. all-round abatement, authorising my agent, however, to make what abatements he liked in special cases. My words were, "I don't limit you on the amount of abatement you give, or as to the number of tenants you may choose so to treat." If this was not a fair free hand, what would be? My agent afterwards told me he had no chance to make this known. The fact is they meant to force the Plan on the tenants and me, and to prevent any settlement but a "victory for the League!"

In my original notes of my conversation with Father Keller at Youghal, I found the name of one tenant whom he introduced to me, and who certainly told me that his holdings amounted to some L300 a year, and that they had been in his family for "two hundred years," set down as Doyle—I so printed it with the statements made. But Father Keller, to whom I submitted my proofs, and who was so good as to revise them, struck out the name of Doyle, and inserted that of Loughlin, putting the rental down at L94 (vol. ii. p. 71). Of course I accept this correction. But on my mentioning the matter to Mr. Ponsonby by letter, he replies to me (July 27th) as follows:—

"Maurice Doyle is a son of Richard Doyle, who died in 1876, leaving his widow to carry on his farm of 74 acres 1 rood, in the townland of Ballykitty, which he held in 1858 at a rental of L50, 11s. In 1868 this was reduced to L48, 11s. In September 1871 he took in addition a farm of 159 acres 2 roods at L130, in Burgen and Ballykitty. He afterwards got a lease for thirty-one years of this larger farm, with a portion of his earlier holding, for L155. This left him to pay L21, 11s. for the residue of the earlier holding as in 1858. But at his request, in 1876, the year of his death, I reduced this to L17.

"In March 1879, by the death of Mr. Henry Hall, in whose family it had been for certainly a century, the Inchiquin farm of 213 acres, valued at L258, 10s., came on my hands. This farm was valued in 1873 by one valuer at L384, 10s., and by another at L390, 10s. In an old lease I find that this farm was let at L3 an acre. Mr. Henry Hall to the day of his death held it at L306, 7s. 6d., under a lease which I made a lease for life. For this farm Mrs. Richard Doyle applied, agreeing to take it on a 31 years' lease, at L370 a year. I let it to her, and she became the lease-holder, putting in her son Maurice Doyle to take charge of it, though not as the tenant. He was an active Land Leaguer from the moment he got into the place, and in 1886 he was a leader in promoting the Plan of Campaign. Proceedings had to be taken against his mother in order to eject him, as she was the tenant, not he. I objected to this, for I always have had the greatest regard for her. Had she been let alone she would have paid her rent as she had always done. But Mr. Lane and his allies saw it would never do to let Maurice Doyle retain his place on his mother's holding. All this will show you that Maurice Doyle did not inherit the Inchiquin farm. The only inherited holding of his mother is the farm of 74 acres 1 rood in the townland of Ballykitty, held by his father in 1858. I have no doubt you saw Doyle at Youghal, by the description you gave me, and you remembered his name at once. He was a thickset heavy-looking man, florid, with a military moustache, the last time I saw him. His mother is one of the 'rack-rented' tenants you hear of, having been able in ten years to increase her acreage from 74 acres to 376 acres, and her rental from L48, 11s. to L542!"

As to the general effect of all this business upon the tenants, and upon himself, Mr. Ponsonby spoke most feelingly. "The tenants are ruined where they might have been thriving. My means of being useful to them or to myself are taken away. My charges, though, all remain. I have to pay tithes for Protestant Church service, of which I can't have the benefit, the churches being closed; and the other day I had a notice that any property I had in England would be held liable for quit-rents to the Crown on my property in Ireland, of which the Government denies me practically any control or use!"



NOTE G2.

THE GLENBEHY EVICTION FUND.

(Vol. ii. p. 12.)

In the London Times of September 15 appears the following letter from the Land Agent whom I saw at Glenbehy, setting forth the effect of this "Glenbehy Eviction Fund" upon the morals of the tenants and the peace of the place:—

To the Editor of the Times.

"Sir,—Although nearly eighteen months have elapsed since the evictions on the Glenbehy estate, after which the above-named fund was started and largely subscribed to by the sympathetic British public, I think it only fair to throw a little light on the manner in which this fund has been expended, and the effects which are still felt in consequence of the money not yet being exhausted.

"It was generally supposed that the tenants then evicted were in such poor circumstances as to be unable to settle, whereas, as a matter of fact, they were, and are, with a few exceptions, the most well-to-do on the estate, having, for the most part, from five to fifteen head of cattle, in addition to sheep, pigs, etc.

"Among the tenants evicted at that time many had not paid rents since 1879, and had been in illegal occupation since 1884, from which latter date the landlord was responsible for taxes, provided it is proved that sufficient distress cannot be made of the lands. These tenants were offered a clear receipt to May 1, 1886, if they paid half a year's rent, which would scarcely have paid the cost of proceedings, and the landlord would therefore have been put to actual loss. These people, though well able to settle, are given to understand that as soon as they do so their participation in the eviction fund will cease, and thus it will be seen that a direct premium is being paid to dishonesty.

"In one case a widow woman was summoned for being on the farm from which she was at that time evicted. Finding out that one of her children was ill, I applied to the magistrate at the hearing of the case only to impose a nominal fine. In consequence she was fined one penny, but sooner than pay this she went to gaol, though she had several head of cattle and, prior to her eviction, a very nice farm. The case of this woman fairly illustrates the combination which has existed to avoid the fulfilment of obligations.

"The amount of fines paid for similar offences comes, in several instances, to nearly what I require to effect a settlement. Some of the tenants actually wrote to the late agent on this estate begging him to evict them in order that they might come in for a share of the money raised for the relief of distress, and this clearly shows beyond dispute that the well-meaning subscribers to the fund will be more or less responsible for any further evictions to which it may be necessary to resort. I may mention that the parish priest is one of the trustees for the money which is thus being used for the purpose of preventing settlements and keeping the place in a continual state of turmoil.

"Judge Currane, at the January sessions held at Killarney this year, ruled in about fifty ejectment cases on this estate that tenants owing one and a half to nine years' rent should pay half a year's rent and costs within a week, a quarter of a year's rent by June 1, and a quarter of a year's rent by October 1; arrears to be cancelled. Some of these, owing to non-compliance with the Judge's ruling, may have to be evicted, and their eviction will be what is termed the unrooting of peasants' houses and the ejectment of overburdened tenants for not paying impossible rents.

"I confess I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Parnell's Arrears Act would have improved matters or have averted what one of your contemporaries calls a "painful scandal."—I am, Sirs, yours, &c.,

"D. TODD-THORNTON, J.P., Land Agent.

"Glenbehy, Killarney."



NOTE G.

HOME RULE AND PROTESTANTISM.

(Vol. ii. p. 68.)

I fear that all the "Nationalist" clergy in Ireland are not as careful as Father Keller to avoid giving occasion for this impression that Irish autonomy would be followed by a persecution of the Protestants. But a little more than three years ago, for example, the following circular was issued by the Bishop of Ossory, and affixed to the door of the churches in his diocese. Who can wonder that it should have been regarded by Protestants in that diocese as a direct stirring up of bitter religious animosities against them? Or that, emanating directly as it did from a bishop of the Church, it should be represented as emanating indirectly from the Head of the Church himself at Rome?

"Kilkenny, April 16th, 1885.

"REV. DEAR SIR,—May I ask you to read the following circular for the people at each of the Masses on Sunday, 19th April?

"The course to be adopted for the future by the Priest of the Parish to whom notice of a Mixed Marriage is given by the Minister, or the Registrar, is as follows:—he makes the following entry on the book of Parochial announcements, and reads it three consecutive Sundays from the Altar:—

"'The Priests of the Parish have received the following notice of a marriage to be celebrated between a Catholic and a Protestant. [Here read Registrar's notice in full.] We have now to inform you that the law of the Catholic Church regarding such marriages is: that the Catholic party contracting marriage before a Registrar or other unauthorised person is, by the very fact of so doing, Excommunicated; and the witnesses to such marriage are also Excommunicated.'

"I should be very much obliged if, as occasion may require, you would explain the effects of this Excommunication from the Altar.

"You will please take notice that the Registrar or Minister is bound legally to send the notice of marriage referred to above, and also, that in reading it out in the form, and with the accompanying remarks above, you incur no legal penalty.

"I feel sure that with your accustomed zeal you will do everything in your power to prevent abuses in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is great in Christ and the Church, and to induce the faithful to prepare for receiving it by Prayer, by works of Charity, and by approaching the Sacrament of Penance to purify their souls.—Yours faithfully in Christ,

[Image: Cross] A. BROWNRIGG."

"MY DEAR BRETHREN,—We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny. Many evil-disposed persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those unholy matrimonial alliances called "Mixed Marriages," which the Catholic Church has always hated and detested. Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant. By contracting marriage in this way, they run a great risk of bringing on themselves and on their children, should they have any, the maledictions of Heaven instead of the blessings of religion. In order to put a stop to this growing abuse, and to prevent it from spreading like a contagion to other parts of the Diocese, we beg to remind the faithful of certain regulations which, for the future, shall have force in the Diocese of Ossory in reference to the Catholics, who so far forget themselves as to contract such marriages.

"1. In the first place, any one who contracts a "Mixed Marriage" without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most grave matter.

"2. The Catholic who assists as witness at such marriage also commits a most grievous sin by co-operating in an unlawful act.

"3. Both the Catholic party contracting the marriage and the Catholic witnesses to it cannot be absolved by any priest in the Diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties.

"4. In order more effectually to deter people from entering into those detestable marriages, the penalty of Excommunication is hereby attached to that sin both for the Catholic contracting party as also for the Catholic witnesses to such marriage.

"5. The notice which the Protestant Rector or the Registrar is legally bound in such cases to send to the Parish Priest of the Catholic party, will be read from the Altar for three consecutive Sundays, and thus the crime of the offending party brought out into open light before his or her fellow-parishioners.

"6. For the rest, we hope the sense of decency and religion of the Catholic people and their Pastors shall be no more hurt by any Catholic entering into those marriages, so full of, misery and evil of every kind for themselves, their children, and society at large.—Yours faithfully in Christ,

[Image: Cross] ABRAHAM, Bishop of Ossory.



NOTE H.

TULLY AND THE WOODFORD EVICTIONS.

(Vol. ii. p. 149.)

Since the first edition of this book was published certain "evictions" mentioned in it as impending on the Clanricarde estates have been carried out. I have no reason to suppose that there was more or less reason for carrying out these evictions than there usually is, not in Ireland only, but all over the civilised world, for a resort by the legal owners of property to legal means of recovering the possession of it from persons who fail to comply with the terms on which it was put into their keeping. Whether this failure results from dishonesty or from misfortune is a consideration not often allowed, I think, to affect the right of the legal owner of the property concerned to his legal remedy in any other country but Ireland, nor even in Ireland in the case of any property other than property in land. But as what I learned on the spot touching the general condition of the Clanricarde tenants, and touching the conduct and character of Lord Clanricarde's agent, Mr. Tener, led me to take a special interest in these evictions, I asked him to send me some account of them. In reply he gave me a number of interesting details.

The only serious attempt at resisting the execution of the law was made by "Dr." Tully, one of the leading local "agitators," to the tendency of whose harangues judicial reference was made during the investigation into the case of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Tully had a holding of seventeen acres at a rent of L2, 10s., the Government valuation being L4. He earned a good livelihood as a boat-builder, and he had put up a slated house on his holding. But in November 1884 he chose to stop paying the very low rent at which he held his place, and he has paid no rent since that time. As is stated in a footnote on page 153, vol. ii. of this book, a decree was granted against Tully by Judge Henn for three years' rent due in May 1887, and his equity of redemption having expired July 9, 1888, this recourse was had to the law against him.

As the leading spirit of the agitation, Tully had put a garrison into his house of twelve men and two women. He had dug a ditch around it, taken out the window-sashes, filled up the casements and the doorways with stones and trunks of trees. Portholes had been pierced under the roof, through which the defenders might thrust red-hot pikes, pitchforks, and other weapons, and empty pails of boiling water upon the assailants. A brief parley took place. Tully refused to make any offer of a settlement unless the agent would agree to reinstate all the evicted tenants, to which Mr. Tener replied that he would recognise no "combination," but was ready to deal with every tenant fairly and individually. Finally the Sheriff ordered his men to take the place. Ladders were planted, and while some of the constables, under the protection of a shield covered with zinc, a sort of Roman testudo, worked at removing the earthern ramparts, others nimbly climbed to the roof and began to break in from above. In their excitement the garrison helped this forward by breaking holes through the roof themselves to get at the attacking party, and in about twenty minutes the fortress was captured, and the inmates were prisoners. Two constables were burned by the red-hot pikes, the gun of another was broken to pieces by a huge stone, and a fourth was slightly wounded by a fork. One of the defenders got a sword-cut; and Tully was brought forth as one too severely wounded to walk. Upon investigation, however, the surgeon refused to certify that he was unable to undergo the ordinary imprisonment in such cases made and provided.

The collapse of the resistance at this central point was followed by a general surrender.

After the capture of Tully's house, Mr. Tener writes to me, "I found it being gutted by his family, who would have carried it away piecemeal. They had already taken away the flooring of one of the rooms." Thereupon Mr. Tener had the house pulled down, with the result of seeing a statement made in a leading Nationalist paper that he was "evicting the tenants and pulling down their houses."

"Yesterday," Mr. Tener writes to me on the 9th of September, "I walked twenty-five miles, visiting thirty farms about Portumna. Except in two or three cases, the tenants have ample means, and part of the live stock alone on the farms, exclusive of the crops, would suffice to pay all the rents I had demanded. On the farms recently 'evicted,' I found treble the amount of the rent due in live stock alone."

As to one case of these recent evictions, I found it stated in an Irish journal that a young man, who had been ill of consumption for two years, the son of a tenant, was removed from the house, the local physician refusing to certify that he was unfit for removal, and that he died a few days afterwards. The implication was obvious, and I asked Mr. Tener for the facts.

He replied, "This young man, John Fahey, was in consumption, but did not appear to be in any danger. Dr. Carte, an Army surgeon, examined him, and said there was no immediate danger. The day was fine and he walked about wrapped in a comfortable coat, and talked with me and others. His father, a respectable man, made no attempt to defend his house; and at his request, after the crowd had gone away, my man in charge permitted the invalid and the family to reoccupy the house temporarily because of his illness. There was no inquest, and no need of any, after his death. His father, Patrick Fahey, had means to pay, but told me he 'could not,' which meant he 'dared not.' I went to him personally twice, and sent him many messages. But the terror of the League was upon the poor man.

"An interesting case is that of Michael Fahey, of Dooras. In 1883 his rent was judicially reduced about 5 per cent., from L33 to L31, 5s. His house and all about it is substantial and comfortable. His father, about thirty years ago, fought for a whole night and bravely beat off a party of 'Terry-Alts,' the 'Moonlighters' of that day. For his courage the Government presented him with a gun, of which the son is very proud. Pity he did not inherit the pluck with the gun of his parent!

"I had been privately told that this tenant would pay; but that he would first produce a doctor's certificate that his old mother could not be moved. He did give the Sheriff a carefully worded document to show this, but it was so vague that I objected to its being received by the Sheriff. Upon this (not before! mark the craft of even a well-disposed Irish tenant in those evil days), I was asked to go into the house. I went in and entered the parlour. There the tenant told me he would pay the year's rent and the costs, amounting to L50. He had risen from his seat to fetch the money, when, lo! Father Egan (the priest upon whose head the widow of the murdered Finlay called down the curse of God in the open street of Woodford) appeared in the doorway. He had come in on a pretence of seeing the old mother of the tenant, who had (for that occasion) taken to her bed. The bedroom lay beyond the parlour, and was entered from it. The tenant actually shook with fear as Father Egan passed through, and I thought all hope of a settlement gone, when suddenly the officer of the police came in, passed into the bedroom, and told Father Egan he must withdraw. This Father Egan refused to do, whereupon the officer said very quietly, 'I shall remove you forthwith if you do not go out quietly.' Upon this Father Egan hastily left. The tenant then went into the bedroom and soon reappeared with the L50 in bank-notes, which he paid me. All this was dramatic enough. But the comedy was next performed in front of the house, where all could see it, of handing to the Sheriff the alleged doctor's certificate, and of my saying aloud that 'in the circumstances' I had no objection to his receiving it! After this all the forces proceeded to take their luncheon on the green bank sloping down to the Shannon in front of the farm-house. There is a fine orchard on the place, and it recalled to me some of the farms I saw in Virginia.

"I had gone into the house again, and was standing near the fire in the kitchen, where some of my escort were taking their luncheon. It is a large kitchen, and perhaps a dozen people were in it, when in came Father Egan again and called to the tenant Fahey, 'Put out those policemen, and do not suffer one of them to remain.'

"The sergeant instantly said, 'We are here on duty, Father Egan, and if you dare to try to intimidate this tenant, I shall either put you out or arrest you.'

"'Yes,' I interposed, looking at the sergeant, 'you are certainly here on duty, and in the name of the law, and it is sad to see a clergyman here in the interest of an illegal, criminal, and rebellious movement, and of the immoral Plan of Campaign.'

"'Oh!' exclaimed Father Egan, 'the opinion of the agent of the Marquis of Clanricarde is valuable, truly!'

"'I give you,' I said, 'not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Healy and Dr. O'Dwyer, bishops of your Church, and men worthy of all respect and reverence. And I am sorry to know that some ecclesiastics deserve no respect, but that at their doors lies the main responsibility for the misery and the crime which afflict our unhappy country. I feel sure a just God will punish them in due time.'

"Father Egan made no reply, but paused a moment, and then walked out of the house.

"At the next house, that of Dennis Fahey, we found a still better dwelling. Here we had another mock certificate, but we received the rent with the costs."



NOTE H2.

BOYCOTTING THE DEAD.

(Vol. ii. p. 151.)

The following official account sent to me (July 24) of an affair in Donegal, the result of the gospel of "Boycotting" taught in that region, needs and will bear no comment.

Patrick Cavanagh came to reside at Clonmany, County Donegal, about two months ago, as caretaker on some evicted farms. He died on Wednesday evening, June 20th, having received the full rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The people had displayed no ill-will towards him during his brief residence at Clonmany, and on the evening of his death his body was washed and laid out by some women. On Thursday two townsmen dug his grave, where pointed out by Father Doherty, P.P.

The first symptom of change of feeling was that on Thursday every carpenter applied to had some excuse for not making a coffin for the body of deceased. On Friday morning the grave was found to be filled with stones, and a deputation waited on Father Doherty to protest against Cavanagh's burial in the chapel graveyard. He told them to go home and mind their business. About 10.30 A.M. on Friday the chapel bell was rung—not tolled or rung as for service, but faster. The local sergeant of police went to the cemetery; when he arrived there the tolling ceased. He then went to Father Doherty, who told those present that their conduct was such as to render them unfit for residence anywhere but in a savage country. He told them to go to their homes, and advised them to allow the corpse to be buried in the grave he had marked out. After Father Doherty had left, the people condemned his interference, and said they would not allow any stranger to be buried in the graveyard. When Constable Brady put it to those present that their real objection did not lie in the fact that Cavanagh had been a stranger, he was not contradicted.

The body was ultimately buried at Carndonagh on Saturday, several people remaining in the graveyard at Clonmany all through the night (Friday) till the body was taken to Carndonagh for burial.

At Carndonagh Petty Sessions, on the 18th July 1888, Con. Doherty and Owen Doherty, with five others, were prosecuted for unlawful assembly on the occasion above referred to. The first two named, who were the ringleaders, were convicted, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment each with hard labour; the charges against the remainder were dismissed.



NOTE I.

POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.

(Vol. i. p. 117; vol. ii. pp. 5, 12, 66, 95, 200, 248.)

As the Post-Office Savings Banks represent the smaller depositors, and command special confidence among them even in the disturbed districts, I print here an official statement showing the balances due to depositors in the undermentioned offices, situated in certain of the most disturbed regions I visited, on the 31st December of the years 1880 and 1887 respectively:—

- - - OFFICE. 1880. 1887. - - - L s. d. L s. d. Bunbeg, 1,270 6 7 1,206 18 2 Falcarragh, 62 15 10 494 10 8 Gorey, 3,690 14 4 5,099 5 7 Inch, [A] 8 11 0 209 7 5 Killorglin, 282 15 9 1,299 2 6 Loughrea, 5,500 19 9 6,311 4 11 Mitchelstown, 1,387 13 2 2,846 9 3 Portumna, 2,539 10 11 3,376 5 4 Sixmilebridge, 382 17 10 934 13 4 Stradbally, 1,812 14 8 2,178 18 2 Woodford, 259 14 6 1,350 17 11 Youghal, 3,031 0 7 7,038 7 2 - - - [A] This Office was not opened for Savings Bank business until the year 1881, the amount shown being balance due on the 31st December 1882.

It appears from this table that the deposits in these Savings Banks increased in the aggregate from L20,329, 15s. 11d. in 1880 to L32,347, 9s. 7d. in 1887, or almost 60 per cent, in seven years. They fell off in only one case, at Bunbeg, and there only to a nominal amount. At Youghal they much more than doubled, increasing about 133 per cent. Yet in all these places the Plan of Campaign has been invoked "because the people were penniless and could not pay their debts!"



NOTE K.

THE COOLGREANY EVICTIONS.

(Vol. ii. p. 216.)

Captain Hamilton sends me the following graphic account of this affair at Coolgreany:—

In the Freeman's Journal of the 16th December 1886, it is reported that a meeting of the Brooke tenantry, the Rev. P. O'Neill in the chair, was held at Coolgreany on the Sunday previous to the 15th December 1886, the date on which the "Plan of Campaign" was adopted on the estate, at which it was resolved that if I refused the terms offered they would join the "Plan."

I had no conference at Freeman's house or anywhere else at any time with two parish priests. On the 15th December 1886, when seated in Freeman's house waiting to receive the rents, four priests, a reporter of the Freeman's Journal, some local reporters, and four of the tenants rushed into the room; and the priests in the rudest possible manner (the Rev. P. Farrelly, one of them, calling me "Francy Hyne's hangman," and other terms of abuse) informed me that unless I re-instated a former Roman Catholic tenant in a farm which he had previously held, and which was then let to a Protestant, and gave an abatement of 30 per cent., no rent would be paid me that day. Dr. Dillon, C.C., was not present on this occasion, or, if so, I do not remember seeing him.

On my asking if I had no alternative but to concede to their demand, the Rev. Mr. Dunphy, parish priest, replied, "None other; do not think, sir, we have come here to-day to do honour to you."

The Rev. P. O'Neill spoke as he always does, in a more gentlemanly and conciliatory manner, and I therefore, as the confusion in the room was great, offered to discuss the matter with him, the Rev. O'Donel, C.C., and the tenants, if the other priests, who were strangers to me, and the reporters would leave the room. This the Rev. Mr. Dunphy declared they would not do, and I accordingly refused further to discuss the matter.

After they left the house, one of the tenants, Mick Darcy, stepped forward and said, "Settle with us, Captain." I replied, "Certainly, if you come back with me into the house." The Rev. Mr. Dunphy took him by the collar of his coat and threw him against the wall of the house, then turning to me with his hand raised said, "You shall not do so; we, who claim the temporal as well as spiritual power over you as well as these poor creatures, will settle this matter with you."

The tenants were then taken down to the League rooms, where two M.P.s, Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Mayne, were waiting to receive the rents, which, one by one, they were ordered in to pay into the war-chest of the "Plan of Campaign."

I have I fear written too much of this commencement of the war on the estate which has since led to over seventy of the tenants and their families being ejected, and has brought ruin on nearly all who joined it. I have considerable experience as a land agent, but I know of no estate where the tenants were more respectable, better housed, or, as a body, in better circumstances than on the Brooke estate. They had a kind, indulgent landlord, and they knew it; and nothing but the belief that, led by their clergy, they were foremost in a battle fighting for their country and religion, would have induced them to put up with the great hardships and loss they have undoubtedly had to suffer.



NOTE L.

A DUCAL SUPPER IN IRELAND IN 1711.

(Vol. ii. p. 283.)

The following entry I take from the Expense-Book of the Duke of Ormond, under date of August 23, 1711:—

His Grace came to Kilkenny, half an hour after 10 at night.

HIS GRACE'S TABLE.

Pottage. Sautee Veal. 5 Pullets, Bacon and Collyflowers. Pottage Meagre. Pikes with White Sauce. A Turbot with Lobster Sauce. Umbles. A Hare Hasht. Buttered Chickens, G. Hasht Veal and New Laid Eggs. Removes. A Shoulder and Neck of Mutton. Haunch of Venison.

Second Course.

Lobsters. Tarts, an Oval Dish. Crabbs Buttered. 4 Pheasants, 4 Partridges, 4 Turkeys. Ragoo Mushrooms. Kidney Beans. Ragoo Oysters. Fritters. Two Sallets.



NOTE M.

LETTER FROM MR. O'LEARY.

(Vol. ii. p. 291.)

In the first edition of this book I credited Mr. O'Leary with making this pungent remark about figs and grapes, because I found it jotted down in my original memoranda as coming from him. In a private note he assures me that he does not think it was made by him, and though this does not agree with my own recollection, I defer, of course, to his impression. And this I do the more readily that it affords me an opportunity for printing the following very characteristic and interesting letter sent to me by him for publication should I think fit to use it.

As the most important support given by the Irish in America to the Nationalists is solicited by their agents on the express ground that they are really labouring to establish an Irish Republic, this outspoken declaration of Mr. O'Leary, that he does not believe they "expect or desire" the establishment of an Irish Republic, will be of interest on my side of the water:—

"DUBLIN, Sept. 9, '88.

"My Dear Sir,—I am giving more bother about what you make me say in your book than the thing is probably worth, especially seeing that what you say about me and my present attitude towards men and things here is almost entirely correct.

"It is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation; but I am absolutely certain I never said that 'some of them (the National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, and to administer it by falsehood. We don't.' Most certainly I do not expect to found anything on robbery, or administer anything by falsehood, but I do not in the least believe that the National League either expects or desires to found an Irish republic at all! Neither do I believe that the Leaguers will long retain the administration of such small measure of Home Rule, as I now (since the late utterances of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone) believe we are going to get. My fault with the present people is not that they are looking, or mean to look, for too much, but that they may be induced, by pressure from their English Radical allies, to be content with too little. It is only a large and liberal measure of Home Rule which will ever satisfy the Irish people, and I fear that, if the smaller fry of Radical M.P.'s are allowed to have a strong voice in a matter of which they know next to nothing, the settlement of the Irish question will be indefinitely postponed.—I remain, faithfully yours,

"JOHN O'LEARY."



NOTE N

BOYCOTTING PRIVATE OPINION.

(Vol. ii. p. 293.)

This case of Mr. Taylor is worth preserving in extenso as an illustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, against which Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence, manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr. Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all tell their own story.