Mr. Healy, in a speech at Kilkenny, had made an attack on Captain O'Shea on the same lines. O'Shea was defended by Lord Stalbridge (formerly Lord Richard Grosvenor) and also by Chamberlain. The former related the part he played in the promotion of O'Shea's candidature at Liverpool as a supporter of Mr. Gladstone and the latter quoted a letter in which on January 22, 1896, he had urged O'Shea to "get Mr. Parnell's exequatur for one of the vacant seats" in Ireland, as "it is really the least he can do for you after all you have done for him." "Surely," wrote Chamberlain, "it must be to the interest of the Irish Party to keep open channels of communication with the Liberal leaders." The point was clinched by a letter addressed by Mr. Timothy Harrington to the Freeman's Journal, stating that "Mr. Parnell, during the Galway election in 1886, explained to his followers that he had only adopted Captain O'Shea as candidate for Galway at the special request of Mr. Chamberlain.... The strongest confirmation was given to it immediately after the election, when Captain O'Shea followed Mr. Chamberlain out of the House of Commons, and refused to vote on the Home Rule Bill." On this aspect of the question, O'Shea himself says, in his letter to the Primate: "If I were such a man as Dr. MacCormack insinuates—a man who would buy a seat in Parliament at the price of his honour—I need only have given a silent vote for Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill and my seat was as safe as any in Ireland."
[[1]] See Note, page 290.
[[2]] Parnell dealt in detail with the question of the Parliamentary independence of the Irish Party, and repudiated the right of any English party to exercise a veto on the Irish leadership. He described his conversations at Hawarden with Gladstone in the previous November on the details of the scheme to be fathered by the Liberal Party when it returned to office, related the circumstances of Morley's suggestion to him that he should become Chief Secretary for Ireland, and referred scornfully to "the English wolves now howling for my destruction." He thought the Irish people would agree with him that even if their threats of the indefinite postponement of a Home Rule scheme were realized, postponement would be preferable to a compromise of Irish national rights.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A KING AT BAY
"Vulneratus non victus."
In December a vacancy occurred in Kilkenny, and, on December 9th, my King started for Ireland, and stayed with Dr. Kenny for the night in Dublin. Of the great meeting in the Rotunda I give Miss Katharine Tynan's description, because of all the eye-witnesses' accounts of it that I have kept, none gives the true glimpse of Parnell as she does.
"It was nearly 8.30 when we heard the bands coming; then the windows were lit up by the lurid glare of thousands of torches in the street outside. There was a distant roaring like the sea. The great gathering within waited silently with expectation. Then the cheering began, and we craned our necks and looked on eagerly, and there was the tall, slender, distinguished figure of the Irish leader making its way across the platform. I don't think any words could do justice to his reception. The house rose at him; everywhere around there was a sea of passionate faces, loving, admiring, almost worshipping that silent, pale man. The cheering broke out again and again; there was no quelling it. Mr. Parnell bowed from side to side, sweeping the assemblage with his eagle glance. The people were fairly mad with excitement. I don't think anyone outside Ireland can understand what a charm Mr. Parnell has for the Irish heart; that wonderful personality of his, his proud bearing, his handsome, strong face, the distinction of look which marks him more than anyone I have ever seen. All these are irresistible to the artistic Irish.
"I said to Dr. Kenny, who was standing by me, 'He is the only quiet man here.' 'Outwardly,' said the keen medical man, emphatically. Looking again, one saw the dilated nostrils, the flashing eye, the passionate face; the leader was simply drinking in thirstily this immense love, which must have been more heartening than one can say after that bitter time in the English capital. Mr. Parnell looked frail enough in body—perhaps the black frock-coat, buttoned so tightly across his chest, gave him that look of attenuation; but he also looked full of indomitable spirit and fire.