eappear as the National
League by Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan. Sir William Harcourt's
stringent and sweeping "Coercion Act" of July 11th, 1882, passed under
the stress of the murders in the Phoenix Park, expiring by its own terms
in July 1885, Mr. Gladstone found himself forced either to alienate a
number of his Radical supporters by proposing a renewal of that Act, or
to invite a catastrophe in Ireland by attempting to rule that country
under "the ordinary law."

He elected to escape from the dilemma by inviting a defeat in Parliament
on a secondary question of the Budget. He went out of power on the 9th
of June 1885, leaving Lord Salisbury to send the Earl of Carnarvon as
Viceroy to Ireland, and the Irish party in Parliament to darken the air
on both sides of the Atlantic with portentous intimations of a
mysterious compact, under which they were to secure Home Rule for
Ireland by establishing the Conservatives in their places at the general
election in November.[7]

What came of all this I may briefly rehearse. Going out to America in
November 1885, and returning to England in January 1886, I remained in
London long enough to assure myself, and to publish in America my
conviction of the utter hopelessness of Mr. Gladstone's "Home Rule"
measure, the success of which would have made his government the ally
and the instrument of Mr. Parnell in carrying out the plans of Mr.
Davitt, Mr. Henry George, and the active Irish organisations of the
United States. All this is matter of history.

The effect of Mr. Gladstone's speech of April 8, 1886, introducing his
Home Rule Bill, upon the Irish in America was simply intoxicating. They
saw him, as in a vision, repeating for the benefit of Ireland at Dublin,
on a grander scale, the impressive scene of his surrender in 1858 at
Corfu of the Protectorate of the Ionian Islands to Greece.

Upon thousands also of Americans, interested more or less intelligently
in British affairs, but neither familiar, nor caring to be, with the
details of the political situation in Great Britain, this appearance of
the British Premier, as the champion of Home Rule for Ireland,
denouncing the "baseness and blackguardism" of Pitt and his
accomplices, the framers of the Union of 1800, naturally produced a very
profound impression. What might be almost called a "tidal wave" of
sympathy with the Irish National League, and with him as its ally, made
itself felt throughout the United States. Had I witne