ions in the early part of the sitting, made a singular declaration.
The bill, he said, of which he had given notice, was a bill to be
introduced in accordance with the offer already made. "I do not desire to
debate the proposal; and I have put it in this position on the Order Book,
in order that it may be rejected or accepted by the honourable member in
the form in which it stands." Then in the next sentence, he said, "If the
motion is received and accepted by the House, the bill will be printed and
circulated, and I will then name a day for the second reading. But I may
say frankly that I do not anticipate being able to make provision for a
debate on the second reading of a measure of this kind. It was an offer
made by the government to the honourable gentleman and his friends, to be
either accepted or rejected."(248) The minister treated his bill as
lightly as if it were some small proposal of ordinary form and of even
less than ordinary importance. It is not inconceivable that there was
design in this, for Mr. Smith concealed under a surface of plain and
homely worth a very full share of parliamentary craft, and he knew well
enough that the more extraordinary the measure, the more politic it always
is to open with an air of humdrum.

The bill came on at midnight July 16, in a House stirred with intense
excitement, closely suppressed. The leader of the House made the motion
for leave to introduce the most curious innovation of the century, in a
speech of half-a-minute. It might have been a formal bill for a
provisional order, to be taken as of course. Mr. Parnell, his ordinary
pallor made deeper by anger, and with unusual though very natural
vehemence of demeanour, at once hit the absurdity of asking him whether he
accepted or rejected the bill, not only before it was printed but without
explanation of its contents. He then pressed in two or three weighty
sentences the deeper absurdity of leaving him any option at all. The
attorney general had said of the story of the fac-simile letter, that if
it was not genuine, it was the worst libel ever launched on a public man.
If the first lord believed his attorney, said Mr. Parnell, instead of
talking about making a bargain with me, he ought to have come down and
said, "The government are determined to have this investigation, whether
the honourable member, this alleged criminal, likes it or not."(249)

That was in fact precisely what the government had determined. The
profes