at
that time pronounced against the demand. In substance the new government
made no fresh concession. They said that if memorials or statements were
laid before him, the viceroy would carefully attend to them. No minister
could say less. But incidental remarks fell from the government that
created lively alarm in tories and deep disgust in liberals. Sir Michael
Hicks Beach, then leader of the House, told them that while believing Lord
Spencer to be a man of perfect honour and sense of duty, "he must say very
frankly that there was much in the Irish policy of the late government
which, though in the absence of complete information he did not condemn,
he should be very sorry to make himself responsible for."(132) An even
more important minister emphasised the severance of the new policy from
the old. "I will tell you," cried Lord Randolph Churchill, "how the
present government is foredoomed to failure. They will be foredoomed to
failure if they go out of their way unnecessarily to assume one jot or
tittle of the responsibility for the acts of the late administration. It
is only by divesting ourselves of all responsibility for the acts of the
late government, that we can hope to arrive at a successful issue."(133)

Tory members got up in angry fright, to denounce this practical
acquiescence by the heads of their party in what was a violent Irish
attack not only upon the late viceroy, but upon Irish judges, juries, and
law officers. They remonstrated against "the pusillanimous way" in which
their two leaders had thrown over Lord Spencer. "During the last three
years," said one of these protesting tories, "Lord Spencer has upheld
respect for law at the risk of his life from day to day, with the
sanction, with the approval, and with the acknowledgment inside and
outside of this House, of the country, and especially of the conservative
party. Therefore I for one will not consent to be dragged into any
implied, however slight, condemnation of Lord Spencer, because it happens
to suit the exigencies of party warfare."(134) This whole transaction
disgusted plain men, tory and liberal alike; it puzzled calculating men;
and it had much to do with the silent conversion of important and leading
men.

The general sentiment about the outgoing viceroy took the form of a
banquet in his honour (July 24), and some three hundred members of the two
Houses attended, including Lord Hartington, who presided, and Mr. Bright.
The two younger lead