Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2) / (2nd ed.) (1888)

by William Henry Hurlbert

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.
MR. GLADSTONE AND THE AMERICAN WAR.
(Prologue, p. [xxix].)

This statement as to the action of Lord Palmerston in connection with Mr. Gladstone’s Newcastle speech of October 7th, 1862, made upon the authority of a British public man whose years and position entitle him to speak with confidence on such a subject, appeared to me of so much interest, that after sending it to the printer I caused search to be made for the speech referred to as made by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. My informant’s statement was that Lord Palmerston insisted that Sir George Lewis should find or make an immediate opportunity of covering what Mr. Gladstone had said at Newcastle. He was angry about it, and his anger was increased by an article which Mr. Delane printed in the Times, intimating that Mr. Gladstone’s speech was considered by many people to be a betrayal of Cabinet secrets. Sir George Lewis was far from well (he died the next spring), and reluctant to do what his chief wished; but he did it on the 17th of October 1862 in a speech at Hereford. Mr. Milner-Gibson was also put forward to the same end, and after Parliament met, in February 1863, Mr. Disraeli gave the Government a sharp lashing for sending one or two Ministers into the country in the recess to announce that the Southern States would be recognised, and then putting forward the President of the Board of Trade (Milner-Gibson) to attack the Southern States and the pestilent institution of slavery. Mr. Gladstone’s speech at Newcastle, coming as it did from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the close of a session during which everybody knew that the Emperor of the French had been urging upon England the recognition of the Confederate States, and that Mr. Mason had been in active correspondence on that subject with Lord Russell, was taken at Newcastle, and throughout the country, to mean that the recognition was imminent. Mr. Gladstone even went so far as to say he rather rejoiced that the Confederates had not been able to hold Maryland, as that might have made them aggressive, and so made a settlement more difficult, it being, he said, as certain as anything in the future could be that the South must succeed in separating itself from the Union. This remark about Maryland distinctly indicated consultation as to what limits and boundaries between the South and the North should be recognised in the recognition, and on that account, it seems, was particularly resented by Earl Russell as well as by Lord Palmerston.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis’s speech of October 17, 1862, was a most skilful and masterly attempt to protect the Cabinet against the consequences of what the Times, on the 9th of October, had treated as the “indiscretion or treason” of his colleague. But it did not save the Government from the scourge of Mr. Disraeli, or much mitigate the effect in America of Mr. Gladstone’s performance at Newcastle, which was a much more serious matter from the American point of view than any of the speeches recently delivered about “Home Rule” in the American Senate can be fairly said to be from the British point of view.

NOTE B.
MR. PARNELL AND THE DYNAMITERS.
(Prologue, p. [xxxiii].)

The relation of Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates to what is called the extreme and “criminal” section of the Irish American Revolutionary Party can only be understood by those who understand that it is the ultimate object of this party not to effect reforms in the administration of Ireland as an integral part of the British Empire, but to sever absolutely the political connection between Ireland and the British Empire. Loyal British subjects necessarily consider this object a “criminal” object, just as loyal Austrian subjects considered the object of the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 to be a “criminal” object. But the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 did not accept this view of their object. On the contrary, they held their end to be so high and holy that it more or less sanctified even assassination when planned as a means to that end. Why should the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 be judged by one standard and the Irish Revolutionists of 1888 by another?

If Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates were to declare in unequivocal terms their absolute loyalty to the British Crown, and their determination to maintain in all circumstances the political connection between Great Britain and Ireland, they might or might not retain their hold upon Mr. Davitt and upon their constituents in Ireland, but they would certainly put themselves beyond the pale of support by the great Irish American organisations. Nor do I believe they could retain the confidence of those organisations if it were supposed that they really regarded the most extreme and violent of the Irish Revolutionists, the “Invincibles” and the “dynamiters” as “criminals,” in the sense in which the “Invincibles” and the “dynamiters” are so regarded by the rest of the civilised world. Can it, for example, be doubted that any English or Scottish public man who co-operates with Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates would instantly hand over to the police any “Invincible” or “dynamiter” who might come within his reach? And can it for a moment be believed that Mr. Parnell, or any one of his Parliamentary associates, would do this? There are thousands of Irish citizens in the United States who felt all the horror and indignation expressed by Mr. Parnell at the murders in the Phoenix Park, but I should be very much surprised to learn that any one of them all ever did, or ever would do, anything likely to bring any one of the authors of these murders to the bar of justice. Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates are held and bound by the essential conditions of their political existence to treat with complaisance the most extreme and violent men of their party. Nor is this true of them alone.

There is no more respectable body of men in the United States than the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia. This society was instituted in 1771, five years before the declaration of American Independence. It is a charitable and social organisation only, with no political object or colour. It is made up of men of character and substance. Its custom has always been to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by a banquet, to which the most distinguished men of the country have repeatedly been bidden. Immediately after the inaugu ration of Mr. Cleveland as President, on the 4th of March 1885, Mr. Bayard, the new Secretary of State of the United States, was invited by this Society to attend its one hundred and fourteenth banquet. It will be remembered that, on the 30th of May 1884, London had been startled and shocked by an explosion of dynamite in St. James’s Square, which shattered many houses and inflicted cruel injuries upon several innocent people. It was not so fatal to life as that explosion at the Salford Barracks, which Mr. Parnell treated as a “practical joke.” But it excited lively indignation on both sides of the Atlantic, and Mr. Bayard, who at that time was a Senator of the United States, sternly denounced it and its authors on the floor of the American Senate. What he had said as a Senator he thought it right to repeat as the Foreign Secretary of the United States in his reply to the invitation of the Hibernian Society in March 1885. This reply ran as follows:—

“WASHINGTON, D.C., March 9, 1885.

“NICHOLAS J. GRIFFIN, Esq., Secretary of the
Hibernian Society of Philadelphia.

“Dear Sir,—I have your personal note accompanying the card of invitation to dine with your ancient and honourable Society on their one hundred and fourteenth anniversary, St. Patrick’s Day, and I sincerely regret that I cannot accept it. The obvious and many duties of my public office here speak for themselves, and to none with more force than to American citizens of Irish blood or birth who are honestly endeavouring to secure liberty by maintaining a government of laws, and who realise the constant attention that is needful.

“In the midst of anarchical demonstrations which we witness in other lands, and the echoes of which we can detect even here in our own free country, where base and silly individuals seek to stain the name of Ireland by associating the honest struggle for just government with senseless and wicked crimes, there are none of our citizens from whom honest reprobation can be more confidently expected than from such as compose your respected and benevolent Society. Those who worthily celebrate the birthday of St. Patrick will not forget that he drove out of Ireland the reptiles that creep and sting.

“The Hibernian Society can contain no member who will not resent the implication that sympathy with assassins can dwell in a genuine Irish heart, which will ever be opposed to cruelty and cowardice, whatever form either may take.

“Present to your Society my thanks for the kind remembrance, and assure them of the good-will and respect with which I am—Your obedient servant,

T.F. BAYARD.“

What was the response of this Society, representing all the best elements of the Irish American population of the United States, to this letter of the Secretary of State, the highest executive officer of the American Government after the President, upon whom under an existing law the succession of the chief magistracy now devolves in the event of the death or disability of the President and the Vice-President?