in the State Department, Mr. Hamilton Fish.  After measuring the gravity of the situation, Mr. Fish at the end of March sent a despatch to an eminent public man, well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and now resident in London, with authority to show it personally to Mr. Gladstone, to the effect that if any further delay occurred in complying with the moderate and reasonable demand of the American Government for the immediate release or the immediate trial of the American “suspects,” the relations between Great Britain and the United States would be very seriously “strained.”

This despatch was at once communicated to Mr. Gladstone.  Within the week, the liberation was announced of six American “suspects.”  Within a fortnight, Mr. Parnell, Mr. O’Kelly, and Mr. Dillon, it is understood, imprisoned members of Parliament, were offered their liberty if they would consent to a sham exile on the Continent for a few weeks, or even days; and within a month Mr. Forster, in his place in Parliament, was imputing to his late chief and Premier the negotiation of that celebrated “Treaty of Kilmainham,” which was repudiated with equal warmth by the three Irish members already named, and by Mr. Gladstone.

NOTE D.

THE PARNELLITES AND THE ENGLISH PARTIES.

(Prologue, p. 1.)

As I am not writing a history of English parties, I need not discuss here the truth or falsehood of this contention.  But I cannot let it pass without a word as to two cases which came under my own observation, and which aggravate the inherent improbability of the tale.  In November 1885 I went to America, and on my way passed through Stockport, where my friend, Mr. Jennings, long my correspondent in England, was then standing as a Conservative candidate.  I attended one of his meetings and heard him make an effective speech, much applauded, which turned exclusively upon imperial and financial issues.  That he had no understanding whatever with the “managers” of the Irish vote in Stockport, I have the best reason to believe.  But he was assured by them that the Irish intended to vote for him; and at a subsequent time he was rashly assailed in the House of Commons by an Irish member with the charge that he had broken faith with the Irish who elected him.  It was an unlucky assault for the assailant, as it gave Mr. Jennings an opportunity, which he promptly improved, to show that he owed nothing to the Irish voters of Stockport.  Whether they voted for him in any number in 1885 was more than doubtful; while in 1886 they voted solidly against him, with the result of swelling his majority from 369 to 518 votes.