had, until that point, been looked upon as fools and
scaremongers."

Looking back over the situation at this critical juncture, it may well
be doubted whether it was altogether wise to carry out any sentences
into execution, and the Bishop of Limerick referred very pointedly to
the example of a very similar situation in the case of the Jameson raid,
when the leniency of the Boer Republicans towards the raiders avoided
war with England.

Technically, of course, the two were exactly parallel--by all the laws
of sovereignty a rebel deserves instant death; but it became a question
of diplomacy as well--a point which seems to have been lost in the clash
of battle.

In other words, had time allowed--and of course there was no knowing
what effect the resistance of Dublin might have on the country--it may
be a moot point whether it might not have been advisable to separate the
two questions of the sentence of death and the actual executions, and
one can well imagine the conciliatory effect of a Royal Act of Clemency
in the event of maturer consideration making it advisable to commute
those sentences.

Thus Lord Bryce, who might have been considered not only to know Ireland
from past experience, but to speak with his hand on the mental pulse of
the American people on this matter, strongly advised clemency in the
following letter to the _Westminster Gazette_, in which he endorsed the
advice of Sir West Ridgeway, a former Under-Secretary for Ireland:--

"Permit me to express hearty concurrence with Sir West Ridgeway in the
advice which his thoughtful letter of yesterday contains. He knows, as
others who have lived in Ireland or have studied her history know, that
excessive severities have done far more harm by provoking afresh
revengeful disaffection than punishment has ever done to quell it. This
was eminently true of the rebellion of 1798, suppressed with a cruelty
which shocked the humane minds of the Viceroy (Lord Cornwallis) and Sir
Ralph Abercromby. The abortive rising of 1848 (which I am old enough to
remember) was treated with a comparative leniency which the public
opinion of that day approved, and which was justified by the result. Its
chiefs did not become heroes.

"That condign punishment should be meted out to a few of those most
responsible for this mad outbreak in Dublin, with its deplorable
bloodshed, is inevitable. But this once done, a large and generous
clemency is the course recommended by wisdom as we