nd excitement, and the new horror of all-night sittings became
familiar to the House of Commons. Throughout the struggle Parnell showed
equal audacity and coolness, and acquired a masterly knowledge of
parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt, the Irish leader, disapproved of this
development of the _active_ or obstructive policy, but his influence
quickly gave way before Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year
before, Parnell had been elected president of the English Home Rule
Association. He now threw himself with energy into agrarian agitation,
gave it its watchword: "Keep a firm grip of your homesteads," at
Westport in June, and in October was elected president of the Irish
National Land League, which had been founded by Michael Davitt.

Mr. Parnell next visited the United States to raise funds for the cause,
was allowed, like Lafayette and Kossuth, to address Congress itself, and
carried home L70,000. At the general election of 1880 he was returned
for the counties of Meath and Mayo and for the city of Cork, and chose
to sit for the last. He was now formally elected chairman of the Irish
parliamentary party by twenty-three votes over eighteen for Mr. Shaw.
Meantime the agrarian agitation grew, and in a speech at Ennis,
September 19, 1880, he formulated the method of boycotting as an engine
for punishing an unpopular individual. Mr. Gladstone's government now
came to the conclusion that the objects of the Land League were contrary
to the law, and in December put Parnell and several other members of the
executive on trial, but the jury finally failed to agree. Next session
the government brought in a Coercion Bill, which Mr. Parnell opposed
vigorously. In the course of the struggle he was ejected from the House,
after a stormy scene, together with thirty-four of his followers,
February 3, 1881. Mr. Gladstone next carried his famous Land Bill, but
this Parnell refused to accept as a final settlement until the result of
certain test cases before the new Land Court was seen. On October 13th,
Mr. Gladstone sent him to Kilmainham Jail, and there he lay till
released on May 2, 1882, after some private negotiations with the
government conducted through the medium of Captain O'Shea. Mr. Forster
resigned the Irish secretaryship in consequence of the release, and next
followed the terrible tragedy of Phoenix Park, of which Parnell, in his
place in the House of Commons, expressed his detestation.

[Illustration: Parnell testifying