Sir Bernard showed us, among other curious manuscripts, a correspondence between one Higgins, a trained informer, and the Castle authorities in 1798.  This correspondence shows that the revolutionary plans of the Nationalists of 1798 were systematically laid before the Government.

When one thinks how very much abler were the leaders of the Irish rebellion in 1798 than are the present heads of the Irish party in Parliament, how much greater the provocations to rebellion given the Irish people then were than they are now even alleged to be—­how little the Irish people in general have now to gain by rebellion, and how much to lose, it is hard to resist a suspicion that it must be even easier now than it was in 1798 for the Government to tap the secrets of the organisations opposed to it.

Sir Bernard showed us also a curious letter written by Henry Grattan to the founder of the great Guinness breweries, which have carried the fame of Dublin porter into the uttermost parts of the earth.  The Guinnesses are now among the wealthiest people of the kingdom, and Ireland certainly owes a great deal to them as “captains of industry,” but they are not Home Rulers.

At the Kildare Street Club in the afternoon I talked with two Irish landlords from the north of Ireland, who had come up to take their womenkind to the Drawing-Room.

I was struck by their indifference to the political excitements of the day.  One of them had forgotten that the Ripon and Morley reception was to take place to-night.  The other called it “the love-feast of Voltaire and the Vatican.”  Both were much more fluent about hunting and farming.  I asked if the hunting still went on in their part of the island.

“It has never stopped for a moment,” he replied.

“No,” added the other, “nor ever a dog poisoned.  They were poisoned, whole packs of them, in the papers, but not a dog really.  The stories were printed just to keep up the agitation, and the farmers winked at it so as not to be ‘bothered.’”

Both averred that they got their rents “fairly well,” but both also said that they farmed much of their own land.  One, a wiry, energetic, elderly man, of a brisk presence and ruddy complexion, said he constantly went over to the markets in England.  “I go to Norwich,” he said, “not to Liverpool.  Liverpool is only a meat-market, and overdone at that.  Norwich is better for meat and for stores.”  Both agreed this was a great year for the potatoes, and said Ireland was actually exporting potatoes to America.  One mentioned a case of two cargoes of potatoes just taken from Dundrum for America, the vessel which took them having brought over six hundred tons of hay from America.