The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell - Ii

m (MIAULKS STFAVAHT PAHXKLL [issr,
your addressing nu» on so important a question, yet I read your letter with a melancholy interest I need hardly say thai, I quite concur in your political opinions with regard to Ireland, hut I am sorry to say thut the ' Protestant gentry of Ireland are as hlind to the future as ever they were. They stand on the hrink of a precipice, and don't seem to he aware of it. 'Within the lust few days, I may say, they have begun to perceive that the English Conservatives are prepared to thnnv them over. You must have seen by the time you read this of their deputation to Sir Stafford Northeote, asking that something should he done for the " Loyal Minority'* with new Franchise and Redistribution Scheme, and bin cold and slighting answer.
* A handful of them have met in a back parlour in Liondon to found an ** Independent Irish Conservative Party/" bless the mark f
'One hundred and three years aj?u they met in College Green with colours flying, drums beating, and cannon loaded to demand and insist on their rights. Alas! how clumped! I see no hope fur them unless God works a miracle. There in not a single man with brains among them, but one, hut he hits nn legs and could not lea*! even if he had a mind to. You perceive I give them up. From my pusitiun I ought to wish them well. Nut that they have dune much fur **O}<1 Trinity"; quite the opposite. Yet 1 do wish them well, but their rituso is hopeleHN.
* I am sorry to have to write surh it letter, especially to a man like you, who hits Bpent si lt»nj» life in serving Ireland and wishes to crtnvn it by it |,*!oriouH
effort.
* .Believe iw% yourn Hinc4»relyt
!! A. (fA and most steadfast of the Protestant middle class who had joined Mr. Butt's Home Bule movement. I had boon absent thirty years from Ireland, and I asked him to advise me who were the leading men among the gentry able to influence them, and perhaps entitled to speak for them. His answer was that there were no such persons :