By 1880 the union between the Dynamite party in America (which bore many names, such as the Fenian Society, the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, the Invincibles, the Clan-na-gael, and the Physical Force party, but was essentially the same movement throughout), the constitutional agitators for Home Rule in Parliament, and the Land Leaguers in Ireland, was complete.  It was but natural that it should be so, for their objects were the same, though their methods differed according to circumstances.  The American party (according to their own statements) desired the achievement of a National Parliament so as to give them a footing on Irish soil—­to give them the agencies and instrumentalities for a Government de facto at the very commencement of the Irish struggle—­to give them the plant of an armed revolution.  Hence they gladly contributed large sums for the Parliamentary Fund.  Parnell, the leader of the Parliamentary party, stated that a true revolutionary movement should partake of a constitutional and an illegal character; it should be both an open and a secret organization, using the constitution for its own purpose and also taking advantage of the secret combination; and (as the judges at the Parnell Commission reported) the Land League was established with the intention of bringing about the independence of Ireland as a separate nation.

In the preceding autumn the agitation against the payment of rent had begun; and persons of ordinary intelligence could see that a fresh outbreak of anarchy was imminent.  But Gladstone, when coming into power in March 1880, assumed that air of easy optimism which his successors in more recent times have imitated; and publicly stated that there was in Ireland an absence of crime and outrage and a general sense of comfort and satisfaction such as had been unknown in the previous history of the country.  His Chief Secretary, Forster, however, had not been long in Ireland before he realized that this was the dream of a madman; and that the Government must either act or abdicate in favour of anarchy; but the Cabinet refused to support him.  Before the end of the year the Government had practically abdicated, and the rule of the Land League was the only form of Government in force in a large part of the country.  The name of the unfortunate Captain Boycott will be for ever associated with the means the League employed to enforce their orders.  What those means were, was explained by Gladstone himself:—­

“What is meant by boycotting?  In the first place it is combined intimidation.  In the second place, it is combined intimidation made use of for the purpose of destroying the private liberties of choice by fear of ruin and starvation.  In the third place, that which stands in the rear of boycotting and by which alone boycotting can in the long run be made thoroughly effective is the murder which is not to be denounced.”

And a few years later—­1886—­the Official Report of the Cowper Commission stated it more fully:—­