the Government to abandon much of the tone of conciliation they had been driven to adopt, and to introduce fresh and stringent measures of coercion. The Irish ministers were, as was to be expected, ready and eager instruments in putting into force the change of policy on the part of their masters at home, and even among members of the Opposition there was little disposition to stand out against the measures proposed. While leaving the real question of substantial reform untouched, certain other concessions had been granted, with regard to the pension list, hereditary revenue, and placemen in Parliament; and the confidence engendered by the late attitude adopted by the Government combined with antirevolutionary spirit, strong amongst all parties in the House, to minimise the opposition to the present coercive measures. Besides the reasons enumerated, the lawlessness which was gaining ground in some parts of the country was calculated to alarm the National party itself. With the decline of the Volunteer movement there had taken place a revival of the traditional feud between the Catholics and Protestants of the North. In the county of Armagh especially this hostility had developed into a species of petty warfare, carried on between the Peep-o'-Day Boys on the one side, and the Catholic peasantry, banded together under the name of Defenders, on the other. These last organisations had, moreover, rapidly spread to other districts, where, in the absence of their Protestant foes, they assumed the character of a Catholic peasant association designed to enforce the redress of certain practical grievances, notably that of tithes, and plainly looking to violence as the surest means of attaining their object. Constitutional methods of agitation were fast going out of fashion. It was with the state of things thus summarised that the Government was setting itself to cope by means of enactments of increasing severity. In his resistance to these bills it not unfrequently chanced that Lord Edward, the solitary representative within the House of the opinions which prevailed so widely outside its walls, stood nearly alone. Thus it was almost single-handed that he opposed the Gunpowder Bill, a measure chiefly directed against the Volunteers; while with regard to the Convention Act, another coercive measure, he formed, this time associated with Mr. Grattan, one of a minority of twenty-seven. To a man of Lord Edward's temper, with nothing about it of the assertive arrogance or noisy selfsufficiency of the vulgar demagogue bidding for the suffrages of the crowd, there must have been no little pain in the sense of isolation, not only from his natural associates, but from those with whom he had at other times acted, whose devotion to Ireland and to her cause was as true and loyal as his own. Yet what real community of sentiment could exist between the man whose sympathies were more and more passionately engaged on the side of liberty-liberty as interpreted by the Revolution and its principles-whose only hope for his country was becoming gradually connected with the idea of separation, and to whom England was more and more an alien and tyrannical power, to be resisted if needs be by force,-what cordiality or union could there be between such a man as this and statesmen like Grattan, who, in January, 1794, while declining to enter into the causes of the war which England was carrying on against the propagators of those very revolutionary principles, professed himself to have only one view on the subject-namely, that Ireland should be guided by a fixed, steady, and unalterable resolution to stand or fall with Great Britain? CHAPTER XI 1793 1794 Social Position affected by Political Differences-Married Life T was not in the field of politics alone that the dividing line which separated Lord Edward from his surroundings was widening. My differing so very much in opinion," he wrote to his mother," with the people that one is unavoidably obliged to live with here does not add much, as you may guess, to the agreeableness of Dublin society. But I have followed my dear mother's advice, and do not talk much on the subject, and when I do, am very cool. It certainly is the best way; but all my prudence does not hinder all sorts of stories being made about both my wife and me, some of which, I am afraid, have frightened you, dearest mother. It is hard that when, with a wish to avoid disputing, one sees and talks only to a few people, of one's own way of thinking, we are at once all set down as a nest of traitors. From what you know of me you may guess that all this has not much changed my opinions; but I keep very quiet, do not go out much, except to see wife dance, and-in short, keep my breath to cool my porridge." my With his family, indeed, the cordiality of his relations remained unimpaired. Of his brother the Duke, who, since his temporary aberration, had continued staunch to the more moderate section of the National party, he went so far as to say-with a touch of fraternal partiality-that he was the only man among the leaders of the Opposition who seemed fair and honest and not frightened; adding, however, that as he was not supported by the rest of his party, and did not approve of their ways of thinking, the Duke intended to keep quiet and out of the business. For his aunt's husband, Mr. Conolly, he entertained an indulgent and tolerant affection. "Conolly," he observed, "is the same as usual-both ways; but determined not to support Government. . . . He concludes all his speeches by cursing Presbyterians. He means well and honestly, dear fellow, but his line of proceeding is wrong." During the first year or two of his marriage even his family, however, always counting for much in his life, must have been of secondary importance; and politics, though a disquieting element always present in the background, had no power to overshadow the brightness of his home life. There is an indescribable atmosphere of freshness and youth and gaiety about the account he gives of that home to his mother. It is like an idyll of peace and sunshine, to |