uage has been, "Do not
let this terrible and flagitious crime deter you from persevering
with the work of justice."

Well did Dean Church say that no Roman or Florentine lady ever uttered a
more heroic thing than was said by this English lady when on first seeing
Mr. Gladstone that terrible midnight she said, "You did right to send him
to Ireland."(44) "The loss of F. Cavendish," Mr. Gladstone wrote to his
eldest son, "will ever be to us all as an unhealed wound."

On the day after the murders Mr. Gladstone received a note through the
same channel by which Mr. Chamberlain had carried on his communications:
"I am authorised by Mr. Parnell to state that if Mr. Gladstone considers
it necessary for the maintenance of his [Mr. G.'s] position and for
carrying out his views, that Mr. Parnell should resign his seat, Mr.
Parnell is prepared to do so immediately." To this Mr. Gladstone replied
(May 7):--

My duty does not permit me for a moment to entertain Mr. Parnell's
proposal, just conveyed to me by you, that he should if I think it
needful resign his seat; but I am deeply sensible of the
honourable motives by which it has been prompted.

"My opinion is," said Mr. Gladstone to Lord Granville, "that if Parnell
goes, no restraining influence will remain; the scale of outrages will be
again enlarged; and no repressive bill can avail to put it down." Those of
the cabinet who had the best chance of knowing, were convinced that Mr.
Parnell was "sincerely anxious for the pacification of Ireland."

The reaction produced by the murders in the Park made perseverance in a
milder policy impossible in face of English opinion, and parliament
eagerly passed the Coercion Act of 1882. I once asked an Irishman of
consummate experience and equitable mind, with no leanings that I know of
to political nationalism, whether the task of any later ruler of Ireland
was comparable to Lord Spencer's. "Assuredly not," he replied: "in 1882
Ireland seemed to be literally a society on the eve of dissolution. The
Invincibles still roved with knives about the streets of Dublin.
Discontent had been stirred in the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary,
and a dangerous mutiny broke out in the metropolitan force. Over half of
the country the demoralisation of every class, the terror, the fierce
hatred, the universal distrust, had grown to an incredible pitch. The
moral cowardice of what ought to have been the governing class was