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 OP 
 
 CHARLES STEWART PARNELL, M.P., 
 
 WITH 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS ANCESTRY. 
 
 Before sketching the career of Mr. Parnell from his birth to the 
 present hour, we de$m it proper to give some account of the sources 
 whence he sprang. It will be found that on the maternal as well as 
 on the paternal side he had a distinguished ancestry ; the former 
 being as noted for honest, hearty hate of English oppression and 
 love of domination as the latter for sincere and practical Irish patriot¬ 
 ism. 
 
 The story we have to tell must naturally possess a powerful inte¬ 
 rest for the Irish people ; but even if Charles Stewart Parnell were 
 not so endeared to them as he is, the record would have intrinsically 
 a strong attraction for every reader, for it deals with a number of 
 people eminent or illustrious in their day, some of whom played . 
 leading parts on the world’s great stage, and some, again, about whose 
 lives there is all the brilliancy of romance. In this latter category 
 stands the Irish-American Admiral Stewart, whose daring and success¬ 
 ful exploits on the ocean, in especial against the British in the war 
 of 1812 , were extraordinary, and whose splendid career will be traced 
 with considerable fulness of detail in a subsequent paper. Another 
 of Mr. Parnell’s maternal ancestors, Judge Tudor, took a stern part 
 against the British in the American war of independence ; so that we 
 have the interesting fact that the gallant member for Meath has in I 
 his veins the blood of men who fought against England in the two 
 wars between that country and the United States. We may add 
 here that the facts we shall set down will be drawn from authentic 
 sources many of which are not generally available. 
 
 Beginning with the Parnells, we must say at the outset that they 
 were originally an English family, settled for many centuries in the 
 
4 C. S. PARNfci^., M.P. 
 
 neighbourhood of Congleton in Cheshire. Whatever English pre¬ 
 judices concerning Ireland they may have had at first they soon 
 lost; the English sympathies they must have brought with them 
 in the beginning grew more and more modified as generation after 
 generation intermarried in Ireland ; until at length the family ob¬ 
 tained renown for its Irish patriotism. 
 
 Strange it is, but true, that many of our most honoured patriots 
 of the past—the men whose memory the Irish people will ever 
 cherish and reverence—sprang originally from the alien race. They 
 saw the great mass of the people ground into powder, and at the 
 same time cut off from their natural leaders by the infamous penal 
 laws ; and with generous hearts aflame with indignation they sprang 
 to the front, and thought, wrote, spoke, fought, and died in the 
 effort to right Ireland’s wrongs. So we had Tones and Emmbt3, 
 Sheareses and Fitzgeralds, leading the people, when O’Briens and 
 MacCarthys, Ivavanaghs and O’Neills, were hidden away in enforced 
 obscurity. Times have changed since then, and numbers of men of 
 the old race have taken and are taking the part that befits them in 
 the front rank of our political life ; but deep down in Ireland’s grate¬ 
 ful heart—rooted, fixed, immovable—is the passionate reoollection 
 of services rendered and sacrifices made in her cause by so many 
 whose ancestors of a few generations before were as English a3 
 the towers of Windsor Castle. Never again will it be possible to 
 create disunion, as in former days, between “the old Irish” and 
 “the new Irish.” The unalterable creed of our people is the creed 
 so well preached by Thomas Davis :— 
 
 “ Yet start not, Irish-born man— 
 
 If you’re to Ireland true, 
 
 “We heed not blood, nor creed, nor clan— 
 
 We have no curse for you. 
 
 “ And oh ! it were a gallant deed 
 To show before mankind 
 How every race and every creed 
 Might be by love combined— 
 
 Might be combined, yet not forget 
 The fountains whence they rose. 
 
 As filled by many a rivulet 
 The stately Shannon flows.’ 
 
 The founder of the Parnell family in Ireland was one Thomas, who 
 came over from Cheshire about the time of the restoration of the 
 Stuart dynasty to the British throne in the person of Charles the 
 
 Second. 
 
 Thomas Parnell bought an estate in the Queen’s County, and so 
 came by it in an honester way than three-fourths of the ancestors of 
 the present landed proprietors of Ireland. He throve on this estate ; 
 his affairs prospered ; and he gave an excellent education to his two 
 s^ns, John and Thomas, whom he respectively devoted to law and the 
 Church. 
 
C. S. PARNELJb, m.p. 5 
 
 John, the younger, who finally came into the family estate?, both 
 in Ireland and England, was a man of ability and prominence in his 
 day. He attained a seat in the Court of Queen’s Bench, and ditd 
 leaving behind him accumulated property. 
 
 The parson was also a man of much ability, and enjoyed, not only 
 in his own day, but even up to a generation ago, considerable re¬ 
 nown as a poet. He wa3 also a scholar and a wit. He was born in 
 Dubliu in 1669, and educated at Trinity College, where he took his 
 degree of M.A. in 1700. Three years afterwards he was ordained ; 
 and in 1705 he received the appointment of Archdeacon of Clogher. 
 But his predilections leaned more towards literary work than to 
 ministerial duties, aud he preferred to mingle with Swift and Addi¬ 
 son, Steele, Congreve, and Pope, in the warm London coffee-houses, 
 than to mumble through written-out homilies in the cold church of 
 Clogher. Some excuse may be found for him, however; for, 
 although he was probably never reduced to the extremity of his 
 friend Dean Swift at Laracor, when, unable truthfully to begin his 
 sermon with the formal “ Dearly beloved brethren,” he commenced 
 his address to his sole listener, the parish clerk, with the famous 
 “ Dearly beloved Roger,” Parson Parnell’s congregation must of ne¬ 
 cessity have been scanty. So in London he spent much of his time, 
 writing poems of a highly moral tendency, a3 befitted a preacher of 
 the Gospel, occasionally trying hi3 hand at prose, but more often 
 revelling in the enjoyment of the brilliant conversation of the wits 
 with whom he mixed. 
 
 His wife, a lady celebrated both for her beauty and her amia¬ 
 bility, died after a union with him of but 3even years. He never 
 recovered from the blow. Thenceforth to the end of his own life 
 he was subject to fits of depondency, and generally shunned the 
 gay society in which formerly he had taken such keen delight. 
 Dean Swift obtained for him the living of Finglas, near Dublin, and 
 so added another to the literary attractions and memories which, 
 through Steele, Addison, Tickell, Sheridan, Delany, and Swift him¬ 
 self, surround the neighbourhood of the old hamlet of Glasnevin. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Parnell died at a comparatively early age, on his way 
 from London to Ireland, in the ancient city of Chester, in 1717. His 
 remains were interred in one of the churches of the place of his death. 
 He was only in his thirty-eighth year, and had survived his wife but 
 for half a decade. He had issue; but his branch of the Parneil 
 family soon died out. 
 
 Among his prose works was the “Life of Homer” which was pre¬ 
 fixed to the poet Pope’s translation of the Iliad. Pope held Parnell 
 in high honour, and after his death edited an edition of his poems. 
 Other poets joined in applauding him. Oliver Goldsmith wrote of 
 him that “his language is the language of life, conveying the 
 warmest thoughts in the simplest expressions.” The Scotch poet, 
 Campbell, still more laudatory, say3 of Parnell’s poetry that “its 
 compass is not extensive, but its tone is peculiarly delightful, 
 from the graceful and reserved sensibility that accompanied 
 
6 C. S. PARNELL, 3LP, 
 
 his polished phraseology.” And he adds: “The studied hap¬ 
 piness of his diction does not spoil its simplicity. His poetry is 
 like a flower that has been trained and planted by the skill of the 
 gardener, but which preserves in its cultured state the natural fra¬ 
 grance of its milder air.” Even Dr. Johnson joined in the chorus of 
 praise, saying of Parnell that “he is sprightly without effort, and 
 always delights, though he never ravishes and further observes 
 concerning some of his poems : “ It is impossible to say whether 
 they are the productions of nature so excellent as not to want the 
 help of art, or of art so refined as to resemble nature,” With this 
 brief notice we must be content to part from the one bard of the 
 Parnell family. 
 
 John, the judge, was more fortunate with regard to posterity than 
 his brother. He left behind him a son—another John—from whom 
 descended a line of illustrious men. First there was this latter John, 
 who sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Maryborough 
 for several successive Parliaments. He is described as “ a man of 
 great integrity and most amiable character.” The “great integrity” 
 was undoubtedly hereditary in the family, as we shall see ; the 
 “ amiability” has descended too, with this difference—that it is not 
 unvarying or unalterable, but is at times considered very much 
 out of place, more especially in the British House of Commons. 
 
 John, the judge, had settled at Rathleague in Queen’s County ; 
 and, as previously intimated, had left his son a man of good estate. 
 This latter, the member for Maryborough, married in 1744 into a 
 family which, if names are to be relied on, must have teen of 
 tolerably pure Gaelic blood. His spouse was Anne Ward, daughter 
 of Michael Ward, of Castle Ward, county Down. Those Wards 
 were by no means ashamed of their Irish name, as is proved by the 
 fact that they bestowed it on their residence. The Wards of Castle 
 Ward were people of consequence in their day; a brother of Mrs. 
 Anne Parnell having been created Lord Bangor. Her husband, too 
 —the “man of great integrity”—must have been a man of ability 
 also, and have “done the State some service,” for we find that he 
 was created a baronet in the year 1766, and was thenceforth entitled 
 to be addressed as “Sir John.” 
 
 Sir John had a son, also christened John, concerning whom more 
 must be said than of his father. While the father sat as member 
 for Maryborough, the son entered the House of Commons in College- 
 green as member for Bangor. Both, in fact, were striving together 
 to serve their country in a public capacity—and by this time the 
 Parnells had learned to think no country in the world as theirs but 
 Ireland, 
 
 The son was a remarkable man. He had a genuine talent for 
 business ; and as the circumstances of the family forbade its exercise 
 in the paths of commerce, he gave the full benefit of it to bis land. 
 In public speaking he never attempted to be rhetorical; at a time 
 when Lrish Parliamentary orators sought after brilliant periods and 
 pointed epigrams and flashing images, this John Parnell of whom 
 
U. 1 ? A KNELL, M.P. 7 
 
 we now speak was content to say out his thoughts plainly, without 
 any straining after ornament. Wholly unaffected in feeling, he was 
 satisfied with “ correct language and a delivery close to bis sub¬ 
 ject and indeed seems to have concerned himself more with the 
 matter than the manner of his speeches—to have been more soli¬ 
 citous to have something weighty to say than as to the way in which he 
 said it. He is described as being a man of “ blunt honesty, a strong 
 discriminating mind, and good talents.” 
 
 His father—the “man of great integrity”—died in the year of the 
 declaration of the independence of the Irish Parliament, 1782, and 
 left him in turn “Sir John.” This second Sir John was colonel of a 
 regiment of the famous Volunteers of ’82, and at a very early stage 
 of the movement for independence both himself and his corps adopted 
 it zealously and strenuously. He clung to it without swerving till 
 his last breath, though he had the misfortune to live to see the 
 unforgivable crime of the Union accomplished. After the death 
 of his father he became member for Queen’s County, for which he 
 was elected again and again until the extinction of the native Parlia¬ 
 ment in which he had laboured so long and so honestty. 
 
 From an early period of his career he was selected for the holding 
 of office. In 1780, while yet plain John Parnell, he was appointed 
 a commissioner of the revenue; he was made a privy councillor in 
 1786 ; and in 1787, when the Right Honourable John Foster—another 
 firm opponent of the Union—vacated the post of Chancellor of the 
 FiXchequer to take up that of Speaker of the Irish House of Com¬ 
 mons, Sir John Parnell succeeded him in the Chancellorship. In 
 this position he took an honest, independent part as a member of 
 the Ministry, and devoted himself with zeal to the furthering of 
 practical measures to forward the prosperity of his native land. He 
 lightened the burthen of taxation on the people ; he limited the 
 pension list so that the Government were hampered in buying 
 disgraceful political service at the expense of the country ; he secured 
 a favourable commercial treaty with France to the great advantage 
 of Irish trade ; and he promoted the canal system at home for the 
 better development of our industrial resources—very creditable work 
 indeed for the eleven years during which he held the seals of the 
 Chancellorship. 
 
 He seems to have been so immersed in his useful projects as not to 
 have given requisite care to the consideration of the larger and wider 
 political principles which were then being enunciated in Ireland. 
 Fatal fault ! Reform would have saved our Parliament, yet Sir 
 John Parnell continued to hold his position in the Ministry that 
 refused Reform, he dreaming, apparently, that inattention to the 
 question could never surely pave the way for the overthrow of the 
 native legislature he so highly prized. He was destined to a rude 
 awakening. 
 
 . After the collapse of ’9S, when the country lay bleeding, bound, and 
 helpless at the feet of wicked, rampant, and unscrupulous power. 
 Sir John Parnell was sent for, and the project of the Union broached 
 
 i 
 
8 c. s. pakxell, m.p. 
 
 to him. His advice, forsooth, on the question was first requested. 
 He gave it promptly—gave it firmly—gaye it inflexibly. It would 
 be a ruinous measure for Ireland. 
 
 The villain Casfclereagh was much concerned at Sir John's atti¬ 
 tude. His personal influence in the House of Commons was great, 
 on account of his admitted honesty, judgment, and talents. His 
 secession from the Ministry would of necessity weaken it. Besides, 
 he represented at least two unpurchaseable votes ; for, having mar¬ 
 ried early in life a daughter of the Right Hon. Arthur Brooke, he 
 had now a son, Henry, standing beside him on the floor of the House 
 a3 member for Maryborough, and possessed of as much integrity and 
 firmness of purpose as any of his predecessors. Castlereagh wa3 at 
 length reduced to his last shift with Sir John Parnell, who was left 
 the option of “revising his opinions*’ with regard to the destruction 
 of the Irish Parliament, or relinquishing his post with it3 honours and 
 emoluments, and the certain prospect of elevation to the peerage—- 
 the post, too, in which he had already been enabled to do so much 
 for the good of his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 It was not in the nature of Sir John Parnell to hesitate before 
 such a choice. He honestly believed a free legislature to be neces¬ 
 sary for Ireland’s weal, so he abandoned his office, turned his back 
 on its advantages, crossed the floor of the House, and flung himself 
 into the ranks of the patriotic Opposition, where in the debates on 
 the Union question he did effective service. 
 
 Sir John Parnell’s constituents of Queen’s County presented him 
 with an address approving of his conduct. The address wa3 dated 
 the ISfch January, 1799, and was signed on behalf of the electors by 
 the high sheriff of the county. In it they remarked that although he 
 had been a member of the Ministry they had such unbounded confi¬ 
 dence in his honour that they did not hesitate to elect him three 
 times in succession, and that now he had proved to them that that 
 confidence was justified. In his reply he promised to continue his 
 opposition to the Union project “ as a measure which seems to me 
 more likely to endanger than to give strength to the State”—the 
 State that was in his thoughts being Ireland of course. He declined 
 to allow any weight to the arguments in favour of the Union fre¬ 
 quently advanced from the legislative union between Scotland and 
 England. He admitted no analogy between the cases. “Scotland, 17 
 he said, “in respect to its commerce, wa3 sure of advantages, and 
 did not then risk an extensive trade such as Ireland possesses. 57 
 
 The merchants and traders of Dublin city—most of them Orange¬ 
 men, be it remembered—were delighted with his spirited behaviour ; 
 and they too approached him with a highly complimentary address, 
 in which they alluded to his expulsion from the Ministry. In reply 
 to them he said with quiet dignity : “As to my personal situation 
 I acquiesce under it without any adverse feeling. The regards of the 
 most respectable and the most honourable members of the commu¬ 
 nity are a better foundation of honest pride than rank and emolu¬ 
 ment. 57 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 9 
 
 The Maryborough yeomanry, of which he was captain, “added 
 their tribute of respect and congratulation,’’ and presented him with 
 a sword of honour, “as a testimony,” they said, “of your dignified 
 and independent principles and conduct.” He told them in return 
 that he would be proud to wear that sword in defence of their king, 
 “and of his kingdom of Ireland.” 
 
 To the last Sir John Parnell and his son Henry actively "opposed 
 the Union both in the House of Commons and elsewhere. Others 
 who began on their side of the question grew weak and accepted 
 bribes, either in place, pension, or title, until the farce of carrying 
 the odious measure by a purchased majority was gone through in 
 1800. But, ^whoever might waver, the two Parnells would not. 
 They stood firm and unbending to the end, untempted by the golden 
 showers rained from the Treasury, unailured by the coronet that 
 would gladly have been offered as the wages of degradation—indeed 
 as a cheap recompense for their betrayal of their country. 
 
 Sir Jonah Barrington contributes the following testimony to Sir 
 John Parnell’s character, and it is all the higher when we remember 
 how at that period politicians of all shades, both in England and 
 Ireland, strove to divert as much as possible of the public revenue 
 into the pockets of themselves or their relations : “Though many 
 years in possession of high office and extensive patronage, he showed 
 a disinterestedness almost unparalleled ; and the name of a relative 
 or a dependent of his own scarcely in a single instance increased the 
 place or the pension lists of Ireland.” In Grattan’s Life his charac¬ 
 ter is described thus: “An honest, straightforward, independent 
 man, possessed of considerable ability and much public spirit; . . . . 
 amiable in private, mild in disposition, but firm in mind and pur¬ 
 pose.” 
 
 After the Union Sir John was sent to the London House of Com¬ 
 mons by his old constituency, the electors of the Queen’s County. 
 But he did not long survive his country’s Parliament. Death seized 
 him, without much warning, on the 5th December, 1801, in London. 
 He was succeeded in the title and estates by his son, Heury, whose 
 career was also a very distinguished one, and highly honouring to 
 himself, He entered the British Parliament as member for the 
 Queen’s County in 1802, and while there was always the staunch 
 friend of the oppressed Catholics. 
 
 All the members returned to the London Parliament from Ireland 
 —even those who had been most devoted to their native legislature, 
 and who had striven hardest against its extinction—accepted in 
 quiet their new position. Grattan himself, though he advised his 
 countrymen to “ keep knocking at the Union” in the hope of demo¬ 
 lishing it, never dreamt that the place where the hardest knocks of 
 all could be given wa3 in the London Parliament itself. It never oc¬ 
 curred to him that by using hi3 great powers towards the hampering 
 of every proceeding of that institution he could offer to the British 
 only a choice between the disintegration of their own legislature or 
 the restoration of the Irish one. Yet nothing seems more likely than 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
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 that if the Irish representation as a whole had behaved, from the 
 very beginning in 1801, as a foreign substance introduced into the 
 imperial body, rankling in it more and more as time went on, 
 straitening it in its every action, making it feel sore at every move¬ 
 ment, the British would very soon have been heartily sick of the 
 Union, and been glad to submit to the one operation that alone would 
 relieve them from the inflaming foreign substance. Of course in fol¬ 
 lowing this line the Irish members, to be successful, should have 
 acted with prudence as well as firmness, and, while availing them¬ 
 selves of every Parliamentary privilege, should have been careful to 
 keep well within Parliamentary rules ; but want either of tact or of 
 courage was not characteristic of the Irish gentlemen of the begin¬ 
 ning of the present century, unless the records of the time misrepre¬ 
 sent them much. Indeed it required no greater degree of those 
 qualities to be generally antagonistic and troublesome than it did to 
 face on numerous special occasions the angry demon of English 
 bigotry on the Catholic question ; yet several Irish members did so 
 face it, and among them one of the foremost was Sir Henry Parnell. 
 
 Sir Henry Parnell’s instincts and convictions were all towards 
 liberal ideas. From a very early period of his career ho espoused the 
 cause of his downtrodden Catholic countrymen with the ardour and 
 honesty of his family. His pen as well as his voice he laboriously 
 exerted in their behalf. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the 
 beneficial effect on the cause of Emancipation produced by his 
 44 History of the Penal Laws’* and his 44 Historical Apology for the 
 Irish Catholics.” A Protestant himself, and one whose honour and 
 disinterestedness were beyond question by even the most malignant 
 bigot, his powerful arrays of facts supporting his strong arguments 
 must have converted many a sturdy but honest foe into a friend of 
 the Catholic claims. In the British House of Commons also he 
 took every opportunity of speaking on behalf of his Catholic coun¬ 
 trymen’s rights. He was the constant ally of Grattan and Plunket 
 in the many debates raised from time to time on the Catholic ques¬ 
 tion in that House. Everyone knows that it was the mass of the 
 Irish people, under O’Connell, who in the end overthrew the strong¬ 
 hold of British bigotry; yet sight should not be lost of the fact that 
 the three Irish Protestants just named, in conjunction with some 
 others and some liberal-minded English ones, made the first sharp 
 assaults, took the formidable outworks, and undermined the massive 
 walls. Though the details of their efforts be not now generally re¬ 
 membered—though, in fact, there be tens of thousands in Ireland who 
 have never even heard of their endeavours—one remarkable conse¬ 
 quence of those and like generous efforts unalterably remains. There 
 is no office of trust or honour in the gift of Irish Catholics to which 
 an Irish Protestant may not aspire, in the full confidence that it 
 will be given to him as freely as if he worshipped in the same temple 
 as they, provided only that he show himself a true Irishman. 
 
 One particular hardship pertaining to the lot of Irish Catholics 
 excited Sir Henry Parnell’s deepest pity for the victims and his 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 11 
 
 warmest indignation against the intolerable oppression—the tithe 
 system. Pressed to the very earth by the exactions of his landlord 
 —often reduced, after all his unending toil from year’s end to year’s 
 end, to subsist on a scanty portion of the humblest fare, to live in a 
 hovel not a whit better than a pigstye, and to clothe himself in a 
 raiment of tatters such as the ragman would not touch with his 
 crook, much less put into his bag—the peasant had still to support 
 in idleness and luxury the parson whose ministrations he utterly 
 rejected, and whose teachings he declined without thanks. The 
 parson, on his part, sought his “ tithes” much as a wolf seeks its 
 prey, and commonly seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in adding 
 every circumstance of aggravation to the collection of the hateful 
 impost. Sir Henry Parnell beheld all this, and his heart was wrung 
 with compassion, his soul was moved with righteous wrath. With 
 pains and labour he gathered revolting instances of the shocking op¬ 
 pressiveness of the tithe exaction, and brought them before the 
 British House of Commons. He exposed the rapacity of numerous 
 clergymen of the established Church in regard to tithes ; held up to 
 public execration the diabolical ingenuity which, by the addition of 
 legal costs, ran up the sum for which the peasant was liable to five or 
 six times its original amount; he showed the monstrosity of having the 
 tithe-claimers themselves the judges of their own cases against the 
 peasantry in “the bishop’s courtand denounced the glaring 
 wickedness of parsons like the one who distrained five sheep from a 
 farmer for a tithe of five shillings, and bought them in himself after¬ 
 wards, under the distress, for a shilling apiece. As with Empanci- 
 pation, so with tithes—it was the Irish people themselves who over¬ 
 turned the abominable system at last; but the task was rendered 
 easier for them by Sir Henry Parnell; his battering rams had shaken 
 the citadel of iniquity to its foundations, and but that it was but¬ 
 tressed by the combined aristocratic and ecclesiastic power of Eng¬ 
 land it must have fallen before their shocks. 
 
 Both before and after Emancipation Sir Henry was in general poli¬ 
 tics what used to be called a Radical. Taught, probably, by his ex¬ 
 perience of the Irish Parliament, he was devoted to reform of the 
 English one. He lived to become a peer of Great Britain ; but all 
 his life he was heart and soul a democrat. He was one of the men 
 who are said to be in advance of their time, but whose life-labours 
 are nevertheless fruitful for those who come after them. Among the 
 projects he advocated in the British House of Commons were the 
 abolition of all laws restricting either labour or capital, including 
 the abolition of the corn laws which made the food of the people 
 dear ; the removal of all unequal taxes, and the substitution of a pro¬ 
 perty tax ; the shortening of the term for which members of Parlia- 
 ment are elected, so that constituencies could sooner deal with those 
 who misrepresent them ; an extension of the franchise ; the intro¬ 
 duction of the ballot for the protection of voters from intimidation ; 
 and the abolition of flogging in the army and navy, and of impress¬ 
 ment in the latter. Most of these projects have since been con- 
 
12 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 verted into the law of the British empire ; and so lately as 1S70 
 Mr. C. S. Parnell carried into effect one of the leading ideas of his 
 far-seeing and reforming relative by virtually “ killing the ‘cat’.” 
 
 The English people, as well as the Irish, have much for which to 
 thank Mr. C. S. Parnell; and the case is exactly like with Sir Henry. 
 He it was who opened for them the way to a reform of their Parlia¬ 
 ment. William the Fourth came to the British throne in the August 
 of 1830. Hi3 Prime Minister was the Duke of Wellington; his 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Robert Peel. On the 12th Novem¬ 
 ber Sir Henry Parnell moved a resolution—“That a select commit¬ 
 tee shall be appointed to take into consideration the estimates and 
 amounts proposed by command of his Majesty regarding the Civil 
 List.” As a lively English writer says : “ The Civil List is a list of 
 all the revenues of the Crown—the income of the king in fact. And 
 here scarcely had his Majesty got warm in his seat when this auda¬ 
 cious man proposed to overhaul it. His Majesty was wrathful, and 
 ordered his Ministers to oppose this daring proposal with all their 
 might. And this, we may be sure, was done. But, lo ! when the 
 division came off, Sir Henry found that he had beaten the Govern¬ 
 ment by a majority of twenty-nine. That was a very great thing to 
 do. But mark what came of it. The Government resigned ; the 
 reign of Toryism—that ‘ anarchy old’—was overthrown at last; and 
 the way was opened for Earl Grey and Reform. This opened a new 
 era.” It opened a new era for Sir Henry Parnell himself also ; for he 
 was made Secretary for War in Lord Grey's Government, and Pay¬ 
 master-General of the Forces in Lord Melburne’s. After thirty-nine 
 years of membership in the House of Commons he was transferred 
 to the Lords under the stvle and title of Baron Congleton. Mental 
 overwork and illness brought on delirium, in 1842 ; and on the eighth 
 of June in that year, at the age of sixty-five, while insanity obscured 
 his reason, he unfortunately killed himself, He left a son, the second 
 Baron Congleton, who has at least the merit of voting in favour of 
 liberal measures. 
 
 Sir Henry, like his father, had no pretensions to oratorical power ; 
 but he was admittedly an excellent debater. He is described towards 
 the close of his career as “of the middle size, rather inclining to 
 stoutness ; his complexion is fair ; his features are regular, with a 
 mild expression about them ; and his hair is pure white.” 
 
 Besides Sir Henry, Sir John Parnell left a son, William, who was 
 content to live the life of a plain country gentleman, possessed of am¬ 
 ple fortune. He had a son, named, after his distinguished grand¬ 
 father and uncle, John Henry ; and of thi3 John Henry Parnell Mr. 
 Charles Stewart Parnell, M.P., is the fourth eon. 
 
 Though this branch of the Parnell family was the younger, it was 
 well endowed with worldly means, and had near aristocratic connec¬ 
 tions. Neither William nor John Henry was distinguished in the 
 political world ; but tradition says that as landlords their relations 
 with their tenantry were of the most satisfactory kind. They would 
 seem, too, to have cherished some pride in connection with the era of 
 
' 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 13 
 
 Irish independence, to judge from the care with which certain flags 
 of the Volunteers of ’82 have been handed down—flags which at 
 present grace C. S. Parnell’s mansion of Avondale, near Bathdrum, 
 county Wicklow. 
 
 One of these most interesting relics of a glorious episode in Irish 
 history is a cavalry ensign, of thick silk richly ornamented on both 
 sides. In shape it is of the kind known as a burgee—that is, an 
 oblong flag with a triangular piece taken from its outer edge. On 
 one side the colour of the ensign is red, and on the other yellow. Its 
 dimensions are three feet by two. In a centre-piece on one side ap¬ 
 pears a dog, with, divided above and below it, the inscription, 
 “ Velox et acer—et fidelis amicis,” which means, “Swift and sharp 
 —and faithful to friends,” Divided above and below the border of 
 the centrepiece is the further inscription, “ Independent Wicklow— 
 Fors. Lt. Drags.”; which last we take to represent “Foresters’ 
 Light Dragoons.” On the obverse is an oval centre-piece depicting 
 a harp with crown surmounting a massive castellated structure ; and 
 fitted into the corners—a word in each—the following, “July— 
 Anno—Dom—1779,” showing the date at which the Independent 
 Wicklow Foresters’ Light Dragoons were embodied. A similar 
 device to this obverse one is painted on, not worked into, the other 
 flag, which is a large infantry ensign of thin silk, now unfortunately 
 giving way before the ravages of time. 
 
 John Henry Parnell, when a young man, went about seeing the 
 world with his cousin Lord Powerscourt; and while travelling in 
 America he met, at Washington, the daughter of Admiral Stewart, 
 of the American navy. He made her acquaintance; they became 
 intimate ; an attachment sprang up between them ; and after a while 
 the aristocratically connected young Irishman took to wife the daugh¬ 
 ter of the old republican sea-warrior. The marriage was solemnised 
 in New York. By this step John Henry Parnell brought into the 
 family the blood of two men who had dared death in mortal combat 
 with the British forces, and who, we may be sure, had transmit¬ 
 ted to their offspring little love of the power whom they had consi¬ 
 dered it a duty and an honour to oppose even to the shedding of 
 blood. A man’s marriage is often the most momentous action of his 
 own life. In the case of John Henry Parnell it was large in its conse¬ 
 quences to Great Britain as well a3 to Ireland ; for the issue of his 
 marriage was five sons and six daughters, among those sons was the 
 present virtual leader of the Irish people, and if the land question of 
 Ireland bids fair to get a satisfactory settlement largely through his 
 guidance, the Parliament of Great Britain has received at his hands 
 a shock to its traditions from which it can but slowly recover, if 
 indeed it ever do recover at all. 
 
 At this stage of our record we shall leave the Parnells for a while, 
 and turn to Charles Stewart Parnell’s maternal ancestry. We shall 
 find in their history many facts of deep interest. 
 
 _ More than a century ago, a Mr. Stewart, of Belfast, who was mar¬ 
 ried to a lady whose maiden name was Sarah Ford, left Ireland in 
 
14 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 deep disgust with the state of affairs there, and determined to settle 
 in what were then called the British colonies in North America, 
 but which are now infinitely better known to all the world as the 
 United States. The Fords, we need hardly observe, were originally 
 a Connaught clan, and of as pure Milesian blood as any in Ireland. 
 A great number of Northern Irishmen emigrated to America like Mr. 
 Stewart about that period, and one and all, as even Mr. Froude 
 admits, bore with them a burning hate of English misgovernment. 
 
 After the Irish fashion, the Stewarts had a large family. On the 
 2Sth of July, 1778, the youngest of eight children, a son, was bom 
 to them in Philadelphia, but a few weeks over two years subsequent 
 to the famous “declaration of independence.” This son of Irish 
 parents, overflowing with the vitality of the eternal Celtic race from 
 which he drew his origin, lived to become one of the great naval 
 heroes of history, had a career which cannot be described as anything, 
 less than romantic ; and died after bearing for seven years the title 
 of “admiral”—he being the very first on whom that title was con¬ 
 ferred in the navy of the United States. Previous to 1S62 the de¬ 
 signation of the highest rank in that navy was “commodore and 
 Admiral Stewart had been so dubbed formally for a great many 
 years. He was the maternal grandfather of Charles Stewart Parnell. 
 We mean to record his career with some detail; but for the sake of 
 clearness in the general narrative we shall leave him for a little 
 while, and turn for a moment to another branch of C. S. Parnell's 
 maternal ancestry. 
 
 At the beginning of the American war of independence there was 
 settled in Boston a young lawyer whose name was Tudor. A very 
 English name, every reader will exclaim who remembers that it was 
 the family name of the infamous monarch, Henry the Eighth of 
 England. A very English name it was, in truth. But Englishmen 
 had been driven from their own land by governmental persecution 
 just as Irishmen had been ; all who entertained ideas of liberty, 
 whether in the civil or religious domain, were obnoxious to the 
 powers that were. So it came to pass that hosts of English colonists 
 brought with them from their own to American shores an abiding 
 sense of wrong, and a firm determination to resist any encroach¬ 
 ments of the home government on their new-found liberties. There¬ 
 fore, when thisjEnglish-descended lawyer found the colonists ready 
 to take up arms for freedom’s sake, he was, like the Irish descended 
 lawyer, John Sullivan, one of the first to declare for it. He joined 
 the army of the immortal Washington, and went through all the 
 perils of the revolutionary war. 
 
 In doing so, besides risking life and limb, Tudor sacrificed his 
 tenderest feelings for what he was convinced was his duty. He was 
 ardently attached to a young lady whose people were devoted ad¬ 
 herents of the British cause. They were engaged to be married 
 when the civil commotion arose. It opposed a barrier to their 
 union, which would not be allowed because forsooth he was a 
 “rebel” to the British Government. He went on fighting against 
 
I 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 15 
 
 that Government as if he were wholly indifferent on the subject of 
 the marriage ; but after five years, when success was smiling on the 
 cause of the insurgents, it was conveyed to him that all objections 
 would be withdrawn. There are many men who, under like 
 circumstances, would have exhibited the obstinacy of wounded 
 vanity ; but Mr. Tudor loved his sweetheart for her gracious self, 
 not for her political notions—whether they happened to be what he 
 thought right or wrong—so he gladly espoused her after their long 
 separation. 
 
 The spirit of Judge Tudor was communicated to his offspring ; 
 and when, after a generation, the rebellious stream of the Tudor 
 blood wa3 mingled with the fiery, jndignant stream of the Stewarts’, 
 the mixture was not of a kind very susceptible to impressions 
 favouring the notion that the inhabitants of England are a heaven- 
 ordained governing race. 
 
 Admiral Stewart’s father had been the master of an American mer¬ 
 chant vessel. In less than two years after the birth of his youngest 
 child, Charles, he died. The revolutionary war was still being 
 actively waged, with the natural result of damaging almost every 
 commercial interest in the country. Mrs. Stewart’s resources were 
 crippled like those of the mass of her fellow-citizens ; and in these 
 circumstances it was no easy matter for the widow to rear and edu¬ 
 cate eight children. But this daughter of the Fords, who is said to 
 have been a woman of talent and great energy, accomplished her 
 task single-handed for several years. Eventually she gave her chil¬ 
 dren a stepfather in the person of Captain Britton, who was a mem¬ 
 ber of Congress, an intimate friend of Washington, and the com¬ 
 mander of the bodyguard of that most illustrious because most un¬ 
 selfish of successful soldiers. Captain Britton was fond of young 
 Charles Stewart, took him about with him, and on one occasion, in 
 the presence of both Houses of Congress, introduced the boy, when 
 he was about the age of twelve, to Washington himself. The inci¬ 
 dent made a deep impression on the youngster’s mind. Even in his 
 old age he was fond of recalling it, and used to speak with glee of 
 the effect it had on his Philadelphian playfellows. “Not one of 
 them,” he would say, “dared knock a chip off my shoulder after 
 that.” 
 
 Charley was a wild, courageous boy, and cherished from an early 
 age a positive passion for the sea. It would appear as though hi 3 
 naval aspirations were discouraged in the home circle ; for about the 
 age of thirteen he gave his friends the slip, ran away from school, 
 and began his career on the ocean—a career destined to be so glorious 
 —in the very humble capacity of cabin boy on board a merchant I 
 vessel. Just two years afterwards he was near losing his life at the 
 hands of a leader of the negro insurgents of Hayti—namely, Chris- 
 tophe, who afterwards became king of the island. Christophe had 
 been a slave and a tavern-cook ; but when the insurrection broke out 
 against the French in San Domingo he joined the insurgents, and 
 partly on account of his enormous stature and great strength, partly 
 
 B 
 
16 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 by reason of his reckless daring and abundant energy, soon rose to a 
 position of high command. We append a description of the incident 
 above referred to, taken from an old Life of Stewart :— 
 
 “The Loraine, owned by Britton and Massey, of Philadelphia, 
 and commanded by Captain Church, came to anchor at St. Domingo 
 in 1793, just at the time of the insurrection. Charles Stewart was 
 on board, still at the lowest round of the sailor’s ladder, for he was 
 only fifteen years old, and had been but two years at sea. One day, 
 Christophe, a leader of the insurrectionists, came alongside in a row¬ 
 boat, with several of his sable followers. The 4 citizen-general’ was 
 attired in the elegant uniform of a French officer, which illy accorded 
 with his ungainly carriage and bare black feet. Two of the teeth of 
 bis lower jaw protruded like the tusks of an animal, and added to 
 the incongruous and grotesque effect. The awkward rowing of the 
 natives, together with the comical appearance of the magnate, were 
 too much for Charley. When Christophe asked him to throw him 
 something by which to ascend the side of the ship, a spirit of 
 deviltry seized the lad, and instead of tossing the rope to the visitor, 
 he shook it in his face, and burst into a laugh. 
 
 “In an instant Charley realised the extent of his offence, and, 
 fearing vengeance, ran towards the cabin for protection. The com¬ 
 modore always said, in telling this story, that while on his way to 
 the cabin * something told him’ that if he went there it would cost 
 him his life. He at once changed his course, hurried to the place 
 where the cookjkept his wood, opened the trap-door, and jumping 
 into the hole, replaced the cover and shoved a stick through the 
 ring, so that the door could not be opened from above. He had not 
 been there many minutes when he heard Christophe and his men 
 searching for him overhead. 
 
 “It seems that the blacks finally succeeded in getting on board, 
 the leader blind with rage. He demanded that that * white-headed 
 boy’ should be given up to him immediately, and swore that he 
 would have the fellow’s life. Captain Church was not sufficiently 
 provided with arms to prevent violence, and pretended to aid him 
 in his quest, after having failed to convince him that the lad had 
 jumped overboard and swam to a French vessel which was lying not 
 far off. Every portion of the Loraine was searched, and the sailors 
 were even compelled to shift a part of the cargo in the hold. 
 
 “At last Christophe caught sight of the trap-door, beneath'which 
 the boy was lying in a state of fearful suspense. The moment the 
 sailors found that this had been fastened from beneath, they knew 
 that Charley must have made here his hiding-place, and they swore 
 still more stoutly that he had swam to the French vesssel. They 
 exerted themselves, however, in fruitless mock efforts to lift the 
 door ; but Christophe, not satisfied, thrust his sword down on every 
 side, the blade just escaping young Stewart, who cuddled himself 
 up into small space in the centre. 
 
 “ At last the search was given up, and the captain, in order to 
 appease Christophe, made him the magnificent present of a pair of 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 17 
 
 stockings. These pleased the savage so that he fairly danced with 
 delight; his good humour was still further augmented by the gift of 
 a pair of shoes. The fellow finally got drunk on their liquors, sup¬ 
 plied without stint, and in this condition they succeeded in getting 
 rid of a most unwelcome guest. 
 
 “A week or two after this adventure—the ship still remaining at 
 San Domingo, as it was found difficult to dispose of the cargo in 
 consequence of the disturbed state of affairs—young Stewart re¬ 
 solved to venture ashore. The captain gave him permission, at the 
 same time warning him of his danger. But Stewart thought that, 
 as Christophe had only seen his white head, he could easily disguise 
 himself so that he would not recognise him. Accordingly he put on 
 a different rig, and pulled his hat over his eyes so as to hide his silver- 
 coloured hair. 
 
 “The very first man he met, in sauntering up the street, was 
 Christophe—French uniform, sword, pistols, musket, tusks, and all. 
 We may be sure that the little fellow’s heart sank within him, and 
 that his first impulse was to take to his heels. But the boy’s cha¬ 
 racteristic presence of mind and coolness in the face of danger saved 
 his life. Carelessly whistling a tune, he kept on steadily, and in 
 passing Christophe his clothes actually brushed against him. Ee felt 
 that the savage had his eye fixed upon him suspiciously ; and after 
 passing him heard with affright the click caused by the cocking of a 
 musket. The boy still moved on slowly, and apparently with the 
 utmost unconsciousness ; but turning the first corner he scampered 
 down a side street as fast as his legs could carry him. The re3t of 
 the day he lay hidden in the mountains, returning after dark to* ! 
 shore, and finding means to make his way back to the ship.” 
 
 But if Charley Stewart at the age of fifteen was still only at the 
 foot of the seaman’s ladder, he did not long remain so. Before he 
 was yet twenty he had risen, step by step, through every grade of 
 the merchant service, to the command of an Indiaman—a position 
 almost unparalleled at so early an age. Still Charles Stewart was 
 not content. He wished to devote himself to his country’s service ; 
 for the French had made certain demands regarding rights of search 
 and of capture of American vessels which the Government could not 
 but withstand, and the two republics were on the verge of war. 
 Therefore Charles Stewart sought and found admission to his coun¬ 
 try’s armed navy, and on the 9th of March 179S, he was duly com¬ 
 missioned a lieutenant of the frigate United States, commanded by 
 the gallant Wexford man, Commodore John Barry, whose business 
 it was to put an end to the depredations of French privateers on 
 American commerce in the neighbourhood of the West Indies. 
 
 In little more than two years—to wit, on the 16th of July, 1800 — 
 the young lieutenant received an independent command in the 
 schooner Experiment, fourteen guns. Hi3 cruising ground was still 
 in the neighbourhood of the West Indies. He had now the opportu¬ 
 nity of distinguishing himself, and he hastened to avail himself of 
 
IS C. S. DARNELL, M.P. 
 
 it. From a sketch of his life we copy the following summary cf hia 
 brilliant exploits in the Experiment:— 
 
 “ On the night of the first of September he fell in with, and, after 
 an action of ten minutes, captured the French schooner, Deux Amis, 
 of eight guns, which he sent home for condemnation. While 
 watering in Prince Rupert’s Bay, in the island of Dominica, two 
 British sloops of twenty guns each arrived, one having an American 
 named Amos Seeley impressed among its crew. Seeley wrote to 
 Stewart imploring his help. He at once opened a characteristic cor¬ 
 respondence with the British captain, demanding the release of the 
 American, and in a personal interview with the officer used such 
 logic as to induce him, although with reluctance, to comply. While 
 cruising at daylight, on the 13th of September, two sails were dis¬ 
 covered, bearing down on the Experiment, with the English colours 
 flying. The Experiment was laying to with the British signal of the 
 day flying. As they refused to answer his signal, and proved to be 
 a brig of eight guns and a schooner of fourteen, Stewart determined 
 to try the sailing qualities of the vessels. Discovering the Experi¬ 
 ment could outsail them, they abandoned the chase, running up the 
 French flag, and firing a gun of defiance to windward. Stewart im¬ 
 mediately tacked ship and worked to windward, and gaining the 
 gauge on them in turn became the pursuer. About three o’clock in 
 the evening she ranged up on the larboard quarter of the sfcernmost 
 one and poured a broadside into her. In a few minutes the schooner 
 struck and surrendered to the Experiment. She proved to be the 
 French schooner Diana, on board of which were a lieutenant and a 
 detachment of thirty invalid soldiers, a crew of sixty-five men, and 
 General Rigaud on his way to France. Stewart immediately started 
 after the brig, but she had got safe beyond his reach. After dis¬ 
 posing of his prisoners at St. Christopher, Lieutenant Stewart did 
 valuable service in protecting American commerce in those seas. 
 
 “ On the 16th of November, at midnight, he fell in with an armed 
 vessel, which refused to answer his hail. After repeated efforts to 
 learn the character of the stranger, he sent a shot into her, which was 
 answered by a broadside. A running fight of forty minutes ensued, 
 when the unknown struck. She proved to be a privateer of Ber¬ 
 muda, carrying eight guns. She was much cut up in her rigging, 
 and had two shots through her bottom. Stewart lay by all next day 
 assisting in the repair of her damages. 
 
 “The Experiment being ordered home, Lieutenant Stewart on the 
 voyage rescued sixty-seven persons from a reef off Saona island, and 
 carried them to their homes in St. Domingo, the Government of 
 which island wrote a warm letter of thanks to President Jefferson.” 
 
 A reduction of the navy was carried out by the Government in 
 1801, when only thirty-six out of the whole body of lieutenants were 
 retained in the service. Of these thirty-six Charles Stewart was 
 one. He lost his independent command, however, being appointed 
 first officer in the frigate Constellation in 1S02. When the vessd 
 returned from her cruise, the war with Tripoli was afoot. In times 
 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 of strife men like Stewart are properly valued in every navy. This 
 was especially the case in the infant one of the United States. 
 Stewart was at once appointed to the command of a new war-brig, 
 the Siren, carrying sixteen guns, and ordered forthwith to join the 
 squadron off the coast of Barbury. Here he was employed block¬ 
 ading Tripoli and the harbours adjacent; in which service he suc¬ 
 ceeded in capturing a British brig and a Greek vessel. We read 
 that “ on the 3rd of Augnst, 1804, the Siren led the attack on the 
 town, flotilla, and batteries of Tripoli. For the gallant manner in 
 which Stewart brought hi3 vessel into action and prompt obedience 
 to signals, the commodore the next day in general orders thanked 
 him. For the whole of August and part of September the squadron 
 vigorously bombarded the city and batteries of Tripoli whenever the 
 wind would permit their approach and withdrawal. Upon all such 
 occasions, night or day, they sent their flaming shells or crushing 
 round shots at the fee, sinking several of their flotilla and damaging 
 the batteries and houses.” The conclusion of a treaty of peace put 
 an end for the time to Stewart’s chances of distinguishing himself 
 i further. 
 
 So far the incidents of Charles Stewart’s naval career were evi¬ 
 dences of his gallantry and skill. His next service was one which 
 ! exhibited in him clear-sightedness, good sense, and highly honourable 
 feeling. He had been promoted to the rank of Master Commandant, 
 put in charge of a thirty-two gun ship, the Essex, and despatched 
 with a squadron to Tunis, between which State and the Union there 
 was trouble brewing. The American consul sought refuge on board 
 the fleet, so hostile was popular feeling among the Tunisians. The 
 posture of affairs was so serious, we read, that “a council was con¬ 
 vened on board the flag-ship, the situation was explained, and the 
 opinion of the jofficers demanded whether hostilities ought not to be 
 immediately commenced. Captain Stewart gave it as his opinion 
 that there was no power under the constitution which authorized 
 hostilities and war on others, but that which was lodged exclusively 
 with Congress ; that the President could not exercise this power 
 without the action and authority of Congress, much less the com¬ 
 mander of an American squadron ; that due respect for the laws of 
 nations forbade aggression, and only justified self-defence by vigilance 
 and convoy for the protection of citizens, their property and com¬ 
 merce ; but where hostile attempts were made on either, he would 
 be justified in seizing all persons engaged in them, but no farther 
 would his country sanction his acts.” His sound reasoning acd cii> 
 erttion prevailed, and amicable relations were soon restored; the 
 consul returning to his post, and the Bey of Tunis sending a special 
 Minister to the United States. When President Jefferson received 
 from the consul-general a copy of that opiuion as delivered to the 
 council, he expressed to his Cabinet “ the high satisfaction ho felt at 
 having an officer in the squadron who comprehended the interna¬ 
 tional law, the constitution of his country, and the policy of hi3 
 Government.” 
 
 
20 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 Naturally promotion followed a man who could not only fight and 
 handle a ship, but could think clearly and judiciously for his coun¬ 
 try’s interests and good name as well. A post-captaincy—then the 
 highest rank in the United States navy—was bestowed on him the 
 22ad of April, 1803 ; and as there was no need to employ him on 
 active service, his versatile talents were turned to account in ano¬ 
 ther way—namely, in superintending, at New York, for a couple of 
 years, the construction of a flotilla of gunboats. 
 
 Several years of peace followed, which Post-Captain Stewart, with 
 the sanction of the authorities, utilised for his own profit in com¬ 
 mercial enterprises which added considerably to his means. How¬ 
 ever, on the breaking out of the war with England in 1312, the first 
 thought of the hero was not for himself or his interests but for his 
 country’s. He hastened to Washington to offer his services ; but was 
 stunned by receiving, at the navy department, the dismaying intel¬ 
 ligence that President Madison’s Cabinet, in view of the overwhelm¬ 
 ing superiority of the British navy, had decided to collect all the 
 Union ships of war in New York harbour, partly to defend the place 
 and partly to save the infant navy from annihilation. Stewart and 
 Captain Brainbridge joined in an effort to convert the Secretary of 
 the Navy from the holding of a tenet so humiliating to the country ; 
 and that same evening they addressed a joint letter to President 
 Madison, so spirited, powerful, and convincing “as to cause him to 
 immediately direct the Secretary of the Navy to send the vessels of 
 war to sea to seek their enemy, and he would take the responsibility 
 on himself.” So that, before a shot was fired, Stewart had already 
 covered himself with glory by being so deeply instrumental in taking 
 his country out of a position of disgraceful timidity and national 
 humiliation. The result fully proved the wisdom as well as the 
 courage of both Brainbridge and Stewart; for the naval annals of this 
 war of 1812 are among the brightest records of heroic feats of arms 
 and marvellous successes of which Americans can legitimately 
 boast. 
 
 The day after the writing of the timely and influential letter 
 ju9t referred to, Stewart received instructions from the Secretary of 
 the Navy to proceed immediately to New York to take command of 
 the Argus, with which he was to scour the West Indies and the 
 Gulf Stream, and to attack and capture every British ship he could, 
 whether of war or merchandise. In the Secretary’s communication 
 occurs the following sentence, so highly flattering to Stewart : “To 
 your judgment, your valour, and your patriotism is committed the 
 best course to be pursued tc accomplish the object of these instruc¬ 
 tions.” 
 
 Nevertheless Stewart did not assume command of the Argus. A 
 better vessel was put at his disposal. We read : “ At a ball given to 
 Captain Stewart and his officers before they proceeded to sea in the 
 Constellation, by the citizens of Washington, in December, 1812, 
 about ten o’clock at night, Midshipman Hamilton, the son of the 
 Secretary of the Navy, arrived with the flag of the Macedonian 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 21 
 
 (British) frigate, and despatches from Captain Decatur, announcing 
 his having captured her with the frigate United States. The 
 dancing ceased, the flag was unrolled, and the despatch read to the 
 President and the assembled ladies and gentlemen. The wildest 
 scene of glorious confusion followed. A venerable Senator of the 
 United States embraced the President; and the Secretary of the 
 Navy, in a spirit of frankness beyond praise, announced to those 
 assembled : ‘ It is to Captains Brainbridge and Stewart you owe your 
 naval victories,’” 
 
 The Constellation was the vessel in which Charles Stewart set 
 forth against the British ; but, notwithstanding her starry appella* 
 tion, her performances were not brilliant on that cruise. It was 
 her gallant commander’s ill fortune to be blockaded in the harbour 
 of Norfolk, Virginia, by a fleet of heavy ships belonging to the 
 enemy, against which it would have been sheer madness to dream 
 of contending. But to be inactive at such a crisis in the fortunes of 
 his land was the idea which of all others he could least entertain. 
 He accordingly got himself transferred to the frigate Constitution, 
 in which he set sail from Boston in December, 1813, for the West 
 Indies. In a short time he had met and destroyed several British 
 ships, including the Picton, of sixteen guns, a privateer of ten guns, 
 a schooner, and a brig. The Constitution had put so hurriedly to 
 sea that after a few months she had to return to get new sails in¬ 
 stead of the worn-out ones she carried. On her way she was chased 
 by two of the enemy’s frigates, and Captain Stewart, not satisfied 
 that his 'craft wa3 just then in proper fighting trim, skilfully gave 
 them the slip, and ran her almost under the guns of the fort of Mar¬ 
 blehead, about sixteen miles north-east of Boston, where she was in 
 safety. In a few days she was able to make Boston to refit. 
 
 It had happened many years previously that in an idle moment 
 Charles Stewart had submitted to the imposition of one of that class 
 of frauds known as “fortune-tellers,” by whom he had been in¬ 
 formed that it was his fate to marry “ the belle of Boston.” By one 
 or those singular concidences which sometimes happen, the predic¬ 
 tion was literally verified. While waiting for his ship to be got 
 ready he fell in love with and espoused Miss Delia Tudor, daughter 
 of the Judge Tudor before mentioned, and who was pre-eminently 
 “the belle” of the city. Short time was allowed afterwards for 
 nuptial bliss. The Constitution was ready for another cruise, and 
 the bridegroom could no longer tarry with his bride. As he parted 
 from her he asked her what present she would like him to bring for 
 her on his return. “Bring me a British frigate,” was her patriotic 
 answer. “ You shall have two,” he replied, his eyes kindling with 
 love and pride ; “ and I shall wear my wedding uniform in battle.” 
 
 It was in the December of 1S14 that he again put to sea, as little 
 regardful of the Winter’s wild storms as of the enemy’s countless 
 strips. Two of the latter were soon in his hands. One he de¬ 
 stroyed ; the other, which had on board a valuable cargo, he sent to 
 New York. 
 
22 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 By February, 1815, he was off the coast of Spain. There was 
 some repining among the subordinate officers of the Constitution 
 at the ill luck, of the vessel in not having had a brush with the 
 enemy off the European coast. Charles Stewart overheard them 
 grumble. Perhaps he had a presentiment of what was about to 
 come ; perhaps—and this is more likely—he was actually in search, 
 from information he bad picked up, of certain British war-ships in 
 his neighbourhood. Whatever his inspiration, it is certain that he 
 bade the officers to keep up their spirits, for the chance of distin¬ 
 guishing themselves for which they sighed was close at hand. “I 
 assure you, gentlemen.” he concluded, “that before another sun 
 sets you will be engaged in battle with the enemy, and it will not be 
 with a single ship.” This was said on the morning of the lffih of 
 February. 
 
 About half-past one o’clock on the same day a sail some twelve 
 mile3 away was descried by the look-out on the masthead of the 
 Constitution. Cha3e was given until four o’clock, by which time 
 the distance between the vessels was lessened by one-half, when 
 unfortunately, under the power of a freshening breeze, the main- 
 royal mast of the Constitution was carried away. Nothing could 
 well be more vexatious to men “spoiling for a fight” as were those 
 on board, since the accident in the short February evening gave the 
 chase an excellent chance of slipping away. Howmver, the gallant 
 captain wasted no time in fretting over the mishap ; but got to work 
 at once in repairing the damage, and with such celerity that in half 
 an hour a new spar had been put up, the royal sail again set, and 
 the Constitution was forging ahead at her utmost speed. Ju3t at 
 this time another ship of war was reported by the look-out, and evi¬ 
 dently exchanging signals with the chase. Captain Stewart under¬ 
 stood the signals, and from them divined that the vessels were 
 British men-of-war and consorts. What followed is so well de¬ 
 scribed in the Life of Stewart from which we have before quoted 
 that we shall make use of the description here :— 
 
 “One of the vessels being painted with double yellow streaks 
 and false ports in the waist, had at a distance the appearance of a 
 double-decked ship, and Lieutenant Ballard told Captain Stewart 
 that she must be at least a fifty-gun ship. He replied that she 
 looked too small to be a ship of that class, but might be an old 
 forty-four on two decks. ‘However,’ he added, ‘be this as it may, 
 you know I promised you a fight before the setting of to-morrow’s 
 sun, and if we do not take it now that it is offered, we can scarcely 
 have another chance. We must flog them when we catch them, 
 whether she has one gun-deck or two !’ 
 
 “ At five o’clock the leeward ship bore up before the wind, under 
 easy sail, to enable the chased ship to join her. The Constitution 
 having gained considerably on the chase, with a hope of crippling 
 her, or bringing her to action before she could join her consort, fired 
 a shot at her which fell short. The chase continued until the two 
 ships joined, and a little before seven o’clock, the moon shining 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 23 
 
 brightly, the British ship3 hauled to the wind in a line ahead of 
 each other, about two hundred yards apart. Reducing to fighting 
 sail, and heaving to with the maintop sails to the masts, they awaited 
 the American’s coming up. The Constitution was on the starboard 
 quarter of the sternmost vessel, about one mile distant. Furling in 
 all except the topsails, jib, and topgallant sails, reduced to fighting 
 trim, she gradually luffed to starboard, and ranged along the wind¬ 
 ward side of the sternmost ship until she reached the desired posi¬ 
 tion, which was at the apex of the equilateral triangle, the British 
 ships forming the base line. Stewart heaving the Constitution to, 
 with the mainsails to the mast and the jib in brails, he fired a shot, 
 not. at either, but between both, with a view to invite the action 
 and draw their fire. Eis motive for this was to make the British 
 commit the first act of hostility, he having boarded a Russian ship 
 three days before, direct from London, and received from her captain 
 a copy of the London Times , containing the heads of the treaty of 
 Ghent, as signed by the Ministers of the United States and Great 
 Britain, and said to have been ratified by the Prince Regent. Sup¬ 
 posing the British ships might have later information than himself, 
 be wished to give them a chance to decline battle if peace had been 
 made between the two countries.” 
 
 Here we may interrupt the narrative for a moment to note how 
 scrupulously Captain Stewart respected the rules and regulations of 
 naval warfare, or, as it would be phrased in the London Parlia¬ 
 ment, kept himself “ in order.” But to continue :— 
 
 “ The Cyane (Captain Gordon Falcon) and the Levant (Captain 
 Hon. George Douglas) answered with broadsides and musketry, and 
 the Constitution opened with a division on the gun deck and another 
 on the forecastle on the Levant, and two divisions on the gun deck 
 and another on the quarter deck on the Cyane. The Constitution 
 maintained the same position throughout the fight, as a nearer ap¬ 
 proach would have thrown one of the ships out of the line of her fire, 
 and exposed her to being raked. Thus the battle was continued for 
 about forty minutes, when the Levant wore off before the wind and 
 retired from the fight. Her consort the Cyane immediately after 
 wore short round, and hauling close to the wind, poured in her 
 broadside with her colours struck and hanging over the taffrail, as 
 the Constitution was in the act of wearing around after her. Not 
 the slightest injury was done by this fire. Stewart, though feeling 
 incensed, did not return it, determining to hold the officer in com¬ 
 mand responsible. The matter was afterwards explained a3 occur¬ 
 ring in mistake. The Cyane was immediately taken possession of, 
 and her officers sent on board the Constitution, which filled away 
 to leeward after the Levant, followed by the prize with the Ameri¬ 
 can ensign flying. The Levant, finding it impossible to escape, wore 
 ship, and ranged under larboard tack along the starboard battery 
 of the Constitution in close and gallant style, and delivered her fire. 
 The Constitution poured into her a broadside, and wearing short 
 around, plunged into her stern three chase shots, which arrested her 
 
21 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 escape and brought down her colours. She was immediately boarded 
 and her officers sent to Stewart’s ship. 
 
 “The principal injury received by the Constitution was in her 
 rigging ; that of the enemy’s ships in their hulls. The Americans 
 had three killed and twelve wounded, three of the latter mortally. 
 The Cyane lost twelve killed and twenty-six wounded ; the Levant 
 twenty-three killed and sixteen wounded—total British casualties, 
 seventy-seven. The Constitution mounted fifty-one guns, twenty- 
 four of which ware thirty-two pounders; the Cyane thirty-two guns, 
 of which twenty-two were thirty-two pounders ; and the Levant 
 twenty-one guns, eighteen of which were thirty-two pounders. The 
 odds against the Constitution is most clearly shown in the calibre 
 of the guns, the British carrying sixteen more thirty-two pounders.” 
 
 In his History of the American Navy, J. Fennimore Cooper, 
 commenting on this splendid naval victory, says :— 
 
 “ The manner in which Captain Stewart handled his ship on this 
 occasion excited much admiration among nautical men ; it being 
 unusual for a single vessel to engage two enemies and escape being 
 raked. So far from this occurring to the Constitution, however, she 
 actually raked both her opponents ; and the manner in which she 
 backed and filled in the smoke, forcing her two antagonists down to 
 leeward when they were endeavouring to cross her stern or forefoot, 
 is surely the most brilliant manoeuvring in naval annals.” 
 
 A couple of anecdotes relating to this sea-fight can hardly fail 
 to be interesting here. 
 
 While the victor was sitting in his cabin, talking with one of his 
 prisoners, a British captain, there entered a midshipman of the Con¬ 
 stitution to inquire if the crew might have their usual allowance of 
 grog. Now the ordinary 4 time of serving out grog had passed 
 before the action began; so Captain Stewart, in surprise, asked if 
 the men had nokbeen supplied already. “ No, sir,” replied the mid¬ 
 shipman ; “it was mixed ready for serving just before the battle 
 began, but the forecastle men and other old sailors of the crew said 
 they didn’t want any Dutch courage on board, and capsized the grog- 
 tub in the lee-scuppers.” That is precisely the sort of spirit which at 
 least deserves success, and which generally succeeds in attaining it. 
 
 The two British captains were foolish enough to dispute in 
 Stewart’s presence concerning the conduct of the battle, and to 
 blame each other for not having done this, that, or the other which 
 must infallibly have brought about a different result to the action. 
 Such paltry endeavours to shift blame from each to the other were 
 eminently distasteful to a truly brave man, as Stewart was ; and at 
 length he felt bound to interfere. “Gentlemen,” said he, “there is 
 no use in getting warm about it; it would have been all the same 
 whatever you might have done. If you doubt that, I will put you 
 all on board again, and you can try it over.” Englishmen would say 
 that the remark was only a specimen of “ Yankee bumptiousness 
 impartial critics may see in it merely the confidence of a man who 
 knew why and how he had won, and who felt himself able to do 
 
 i 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 25 
 
 again what lie had already done. At all events the British captains 
 did not jump at his offer, but preferred to remain snug and safe as 
 prisoners of war on board the Constitution. 
 
 On the 10th of March the Constitution and her two splendid 
 prizes arrived at Port Praya in the island of Santiago, the largest 
 of the Cape de Verde group. Next day the British captains were 
 allowed on shore, on parole, to make airangements for the transport 
 of their crews to Barbadoes. They secured two brigs in the harbour. 
 While the Constitution’s boats were carrying provisions, &c., to the 
 brigs, a heavy British squadron under Sir George Collier was dis¬ 
 covered approaching in the thick fog, within three miles of the posi¬ 
 tion of Stewart’s ship and her prizes. It was the well known policy 
 of the British ships of war to attack their enemy’s cruisers in neutral 
 waters if it could be done without danger. They preferred reim¬ 
 bursing any claims made upon such neutral by an enemy than to 
 allow that enemy’s vessel to escape and commit depredations upon 
 their commercial marine. Stewart was well aware of this ; he ap¬ 
 preciated accurately the utterly unscrupulous character of the Bri¬ 
 tish ; and he instantly recognised the danger of his position. Beat¬ 
 ing to quarters, making all sail, and cutting cable, he got under way, 
 and stretched out of the harbour, followed by the two prizes. The 
 British fleet hurried immediately in pursuit, the Acasta, of fifty guns, 
 gradually crawling up to the prize Cyane. Stewart signalled the 
 latter to tack and separate from him, which she did, and doubled 
 their rear, and arrived safe in New York. The fleet held steadily in 
 pursuit of the Constitution ; the Newcastle, sixty-four guns (Cap¬ 
 tain Lord George Stewart), coming well up. Fortunately, however, 
 she opened fire by divisions, which had the effect cf retarding her 
 sailing much. Stewart apprehended most from the position and 
 weatherly qualities of the Acasta, which he saw would soon obtain 
 a position to hold the Constitution in check until her more powerful 
 consort could come up. Fighting was out of the question, as his 
 • crew was short by reason of having to subtract from it the crews 
 which took possession of the prizes; while the crews of the prizes 
 themselves were of necessity much too weak to handle those ves¬ 
 sels in an encounter with a powerful squadron. Nothing was left to 
 Commander Stewart, therefore, than to trust to his skill in manoeuv¬ 
 ring to get away unscathed. He consequently signalled the Levant 
 to tack, and lighted his shot-furnace, in the hope of putting a few 
 red-hot balls into the enemy’s hull and setting her on fire, so forcing 
 her consorts to go to her relief. 
 
 Immediately after the Levant tacked, a signal was thrown out from 
 the Leander, the sixty-four gun ship of Sir George Collier, who 
 commanded the squadron, for the Acasta to tack after the Levant, 
 and the Leander and the Newcastle tacking at the same time to cut 
 off her retreat by their rear, thus compelled the Levant to return 
 to Port Praya, where she anchored under the guns of the forts, in 
 neutral waters, in which, according to international law, she should 
 have been perfectly safe from attack. The British fleet, however, 
 
26 C. S. P ARM ELL, JVI.P. 
 
 followed her and entered the harbour, taking her thence by force 
 with them to the West Indies, together with the boats of the Con¬ 
 stitution and her anchors, and those of the Cyane and Levant, left 
 in the neutral waters of the harbour. Not the slightest attempt 
 was made by the forts to preserve the neutrality of the waters in¬ 
 violate. The Portuguese, being weak, were afraid to stand up for 
 their rights ; and the British, who have a great respect for the strong, 
 and none whatever for the weak, trampled without scruple, after 
 their wont, on the undoubted rights of the Portuguese, simply be¬ 
 cause they were weak. 
 
 Stewart, however, contrived to elude them, and in the Constitution 
 proceeded to Brazil, landed his prisoners, and returned to Boston. 
 The news of his remarkable victory was received with enthusiasm 
 throughout the country. In Boston he and his officers were 
 honoured with a triumphal procession. In New York the council 
 voted him the freedom of the city, gave him a gold snuff-box, and 
 him and his officers a public dinner. Pennsylvannia voted him the 
 thanks of the commonwealth and a gold-hilted sword. Congress 
 passed a vote of thanks to him and his brave officers, caused a gold 
 medal to be struck in his honour, and presented it to him in comme¬ 
 moration of the event. 
 
 The remainder of Admiral Stewart’s career we condense from an 
 excellent sketch of his life which appeared in the Bordemtown Re¬ 
 gister, and to which we have been already indebted. 
 
 The war having terminated with Great Britain, Captain Stewart 
 never again met the enemy in battle. Yet his active career of use¬ 
 fulness in the service of his country was not ended. In the Medi¬ 
 terranean squadron, commanded by Commodore Chauncey, a wide¬ 
 spread spirit of mutiny had manifested itself. So far had it gone 
 that the malcontent officers had actually 4 ‘threatened to draw their 
 swords on their commanders.” Commodore Stewart was in 1S17 
 sent in ship-of-the line Franklin to supersede Chauncey and restore 
 t_he proper discipline. In 1819 he ordered a courtmartial to meet on 
 board the Guerriere, to try a marine for an alleged offence. The offi¬ 
 cers, however, preferred to sit at a hotel in Naples, where the man 
 was tried and convicted. The commodore, knowing that the session 
 of the court at any place than that directed by orders was illegal, 
 disapproved the proceedings, released the prisoner, and informed 
 the court of his action. The court passed a series of resolutions, 
 which act was instantly followed by the arrest of every command¬ 
 ing officer of the vessels of the squadron. This summary proceed¬ 
 ing at once restored a healthy state of feeling throughout the 
 squadron. The President and Cabinet approved of Stewart’s pro¬ 
 ceeding, but as the officers expressed regret at their conduct, the 
 matter was dropped. 
 
 While the squadron lay [at Naples the Emperor of Austria and 
 suite visited the Franklin. The grand master of the empress, ar¬ 
 rayed in a magnificently brilliant uniform, being somewhat near¬ 
 sighted, mistook a wind sail for a mast, and fell from the deck to 
 
I 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 27 
 
 tbe cock-pit, breaking bis ankle. The commodore, who wa3 engaged 
 in conversation at the time, not seeing what had happened, asked 
 what the matter was. The old quartermaster of tbe watch, whose 
 duty it was to see everything, far and near, replied coolly, “Oh, 
 nothing, sir; only one of them bloody kings has fallen down the 
 •hatch !” 
 
 In 1S21 Commodore Stewart was sent in the Franklin to the 
 Pacific. The Spanish-American provinces were struggling for inde¬ 
 pendence. Spain was a friendly Power to whom the United States 
 owed justice and a strict neutrality. The “Patriots” possessed all 
 American sympathies. The Pacific was swarming with buccaneers 
 claiming the protection of Spain, who were depredating on American 
 commerce, and the “Patriots” had declared a paper blockade of 
 hundreds of miles of coast. Stewart owed but one duty, and that 
 was to his country. He promptly put an end both to the nominal 
 blockade and to the protected piracy. 
 
 On hi3 return home he was confronted by a long series of charges, 
 some of trifling, some of serious import, regarding his demeanour 
 while in the Pacific. The Navy Department thought best that these 
 accusations should be submitted to a court-martial. The court 
 honourably acquitted the commodore, and stated they felt compelled 
 “ by a senae of duty to go farther, and to make unhesitatingly this 
 declaration to the world—that, so far from having violated the high 
 duties of neutrality and respect for the law3 of nations ; so far from 
 having sacrificed the honour of the American flag, or tarnished his 
 own fair fame, by acting upon any motive of a mercenary or sordid 
 kind ; so far from having neglected his duty, or betrayed the trust 
 reposed in him by refusing proper protection to American citizens 
 and property, or rendering such protection subservient to individual 
 interests, no one circumstance has been developed throughout the 
 whole course of this minute investigation into the various occur¬ 
 rences of a three years’ cruise, calculated to impair the confidence 
 which the members of this court, the navy, and the nation have 
 long reposed in the honour, the talents, and the patriotism of thifr 
 distinguished officer, or to weaken in any manner the opinion which 
 all wno know him entertain of his humanity and disinterestedness. 
 These virtues only glow with brighter lustre from this ordeal cf 
 trial, like the stars he triumphantly displayed when valour and skill 
 achieved a new victory to adorn the annals of our naval glory.” 
 
 Upon the commodore's return from Washington, where his trial 
 took place, to his native city Philadelphia, his friends greeted him 
 with a public dinner. 
 
 Many years later on, hi3 popularity contiuued so great that cn 
 effort was made to “ run” him for the Presidency. In the course of 
 four months no less than sixty-seven papers declared for him. But 
 the project did not receive his sanction ; he gave it no countenance ; 
 he would not even discuss it ; he was “unusally nervous and 
 fidgety” during the agitation of the subject ; and at length its pro¬ 
 moters were impelled to give it up. He regained his usual equani- 
 
23 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 mity only when his name ceased to be bandied about by the political 
 press. 
 
 Commodore Stewart while on shore was constantly employed 
 upon naval boards and commissions, court-martials, &c., and for 
 many years was in command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, from 
 which latter position he was relieved at his own request in 1861. He 
 was long the confidential and trusted adviser of the Navy Department 
 and the naval committees of Congress. In 1855 Congress created a 
 retiring board, and Stewart was among its illustrious victims. A 
 few years afterwards a special Act of Congress was passed, confer¬ 
 ring upon him the title of “ Senior Flag Officer’’ on the active list. 
 He refused to receive the commission, claiming that he already held 
 that rank. His commission as Hear Admiral, the first sent out 
 under the new law, bears date July 16th, 1862. 
 
 Admiral Stewart was in his eighty-third year when the insur¬ 
 gents of the South fired upon Fort Sumpter. It roused the blood 
 of the old man’s heart to hear of this insult to his nation’s flag. At 
 once he wrote to the department imploring to be put on active service, 
 “lam young as ever,” he pleaded, “to fight for my country.” It 
 was hard to deny the old hero the opportunity to draw once more 
 his sword in defence of the flag and Government he loved so well, 
 but younger men were required for the steamship service, to which 
 he was a stranger. 
 
 He lived on for nine years more, towards the last suffering fear¬ 
 fully from a deadly disease. In his Life we find this passage : — 
 
 “ We know how he suffered, and how gradually, yet surely, he 
 was failing. And yet we heard how near the invalid came to blow¬ 
 ing himself up in some strange chemical experiment, and what fun he 
 made of the danger. To the last he was cheerful and hopeful— 
 busied with affairs, dictating letters, cracking jokes, expecting soon 
 to be well again. Then he could not leave his bed—was unable to 
 
 speak without agony—wrote on a slate ‘ I want’-. They could 
 
 not read what it was he wanted, his hand trembled so. Perhaps it 
 was the cup of cold water they pressed to his parched lips. Thus, 
 surrounded by those who loved him, the brave spirit passed peace¬ 
 fully away.” 
 
 “ His death took place on the afternoon of November 6th, 1869, he 
 being in the ninety-second year of his age. The council of Bor- 
 dentown passed appropriate resolutions, the bells tolled their re¬ 
 quiem, business was suspended, and the citizens paid their reve¬ 
 rence. A government steamer was despatched from the Philadel¬ 
 phia Navy Yard to convey his body to that city. It grounded, 
 and the remains, accompanied by the mayor, council, and distin¬ 
 guished citizens, were conveyed by rail. With the naval escort, the 
 stars shining brightly, they proceeded to Independence Hall, where 
 silently they laid him down, while the old bell tolled forth its 
 solemn note3. The next day, after thousands of citizens had paid 
 their humble reverence, amidst the booming cf guns, the muffled 
 notes of bells, and the funeral strains of music, in the presence of 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 29 
 
 the distinguished men of the nation and of the city, and thousands 
 of veterans of the late war for the Union, the old hero’s body was 
 given back to mother earth.” 
 
 His personal appearance, manner, and mental characteristics are 
 described as follows :— 
 
 “Commodore Stewart wrs about five feet nine inches high, and 
 of a dignified and engaging presence. His complexion was fair, his 
 hair chestnut, eyes blue, large, penetrating, and intelligent. The 
 cast of his countenance was Roman, bold, strong, and commanding, 
 and his head finely formed. His control over his passions was truly 
 surprising, and under the most irritating circumstance his oldest 
 seaman never saw a ray of anger flash from his eye. His kindness, 
 benevolence, and humanity were proverbial, but his sense of justice 
 and the requisitions of duty were as unbending as fate. In the mo¬ 
 ment of greatest stress and danger he was as cool, and quick in 
 judgment, as he was utterly ignorant of fear. His mind was acute 
 and powerful, grasping the greatest or smallest subjects with the in¬ 
 tuitive mastery of genius. He was a thorough seaman, and not 
 only fully understood his profession as a naval commander, but all 
 the various interests of commerce, the foreign policy of his country, 
 the principles of government and the law of nations. His nume¬ 
 rous official letters and reports, his correspondence and public 
 writings, embracing as they did a wide range of subjects, showed 
 great accuracy of information.” 
 
 Characteristic of the man are the following anecdote and inci¬ 
 dent : 
 
 The Franklin, while under his command, was lying one night at 
 anchor in Gibraltar Bay, when a sudden blow came up from the east¬ 
 ward, causing her to drag her anchors and go adrift. A midshipman 
 aroused the commander with the startling news. “ How’s the wind ?” 
 said Stewart. “ From the east,” was the reply ; “ she has dragged 
 down hill, and is drifting towards Algeria.” “ Well,” was the quiet 
 rejoinder, “the anchors will take when she drifts over there, as it 
 will be up hill on the other side.” 
 
 “ I never lost but one tooth in my life,” he said to a friend ; “it 
 ached, and I pulled it out with a bullet mould, aboard ship, in a gale 
 of wind.” 
 
 “Asa story-teller Stewart was inimitable ; he was famous, more¬ 
 over, for repartee, and an ever ready wit. His manners were always 
 polite, even distinguished ; he dispensed a liberal hospitality, and at 
 the head of his table he was unsurpassed. Throughout he preserved 
 a^native dignity, and parried with ease every familiarity, as well as 
 the many inconvenient demands which men in his position are con¬ 
 stantly subject to.” 
 
 On a high bluff of the Delaware, south of Black’s Creek, in the en¬ 
 virons of Bordentown, is the old country seat of Admiral Stewart, 
 called by him Montpelier, but now generally known as Ironsides. 
 A former proprietor (caused to be erected the present large mansion 
 house. The admiral purchased it in 1S1G, added another storey, 
 
30 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 tastefully laid out the grounds, and planted many white pines, whose 
 tops now reach the height of a hundred feet. 
 
 Admiral Stewart left two children, Delia Tudor and Charles Tudor 
 Stewart. Charles graduated at college, became fc a civil engineer, and 
 assisted in laying out railroads. At twenty-seven years of age he 
 performed so well some delicate work in investigating the affairs of 
 a New Orleans firm engaged in supplying timber for foreign navies 
 that he was taken into partnership, and entrusted with the entire 
 management of the business in Europe. Being well acquainted with 
 Prince Murat, whom he had often befriended during his exile and 
 poverty in Bordentown, the prince presented him to his cousin the 
 Emperor Napoleon the Third, and the chiefs of the Naval Depart¬ 
 ment of France, from whom he obtained heavy contracts for timber. 
 In comparatively a few years he amassed a large fortune. After tra¬ 
 velling much through Europe he went to New Orleans, where he 
 studied law and became quite noted in his new profession. He died 
 several years ago, leaving his estate to his sister Delia, who, as has 
 been previously stated, had become the wife of John Henry Parnell, 
 
 John Henry and Delia Parnell had five sons and six daughters. 
 Five of the latter and three of the former are still living—namely, 
 John Howard, Charles Stewart, Henry Tudor, the Misses Fanny, 
 Anna, and Theodosia, and two married sisters—Mrs. Thompson, who 
 resides in Paris with her husband ; and Mrs. Dickenson, who gene¬ 
 rally lives in her native land. On the death of their father, at the 
 comparatively early age of forty-eight, he left behind him three 
 estates in Ireland. Charles Stewart Parnell was his fourth son. 
 
 Charles’s elder brother, John Howard Parnell, inherited a consi¬ 
 derable property in the county Armagh, on which he usually resides. 
 He also owns an extensive farm in the State of Alabama. At the 
 general election of 1S74 he stood as a Home Rule candidate for the re¬ 
 presentation of county Wicklow, but was defeated. The remaining 
 . and 3 'oungest brother, Henry Tudor Parnell, was educated to the bar, 
 and is the owner of landed property in the county Kilkenny. He 
 mostly lives in England, The three unmarried sisters of Mr. C. S. 
 Parnell, as is now pretty generally known, share his Irish sym¬ 
 pathies, are proud of the honest manly part he has taken in Irish 
 politics, and are ever ready to defend it and him against all slan¬ 
 derous assailants. They were the first to start subscriptions in 
 America for the Irish people threatened with famine, early in the last 
 quarter of 1S79. 
 
 Mrs. Delia Parnell, the daughter of Admiral Stewart, brought to 
 her Irish home of Avondale a strong American love of independence, 
 and a hearty hate of British greed and desire for domination. Sfe 
 became in thought and feeling an Irish Nationalist; and from her 
 mainly is derived the warm popular sympathies which glow in the 
 breasts of four of her children. During her residence in Ireland she 
 used the means at her disposal most liberally in alleviating tie 
 perennial miseries of the poor around her. At the time of the Fenian 
 troubles she exerted herself in effecting the escape of some who 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 31 
 
 were badly “wanted” by the authorities—a circumstance which pro¬ 
 cured for her house in Upper Temple-street, Dublin, the distinction 
 of a visit from and search by the police. In the end she retired to 
 the home of her youth, Bordentown, New Jersey, with her unmarried 
 daughters ; at which place she spends most of the year, but winters at 
 New York. As the heir of her father and brother, as well as through 
 the resources left her by her husband, she is mistress of an ample 
 income. 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell was born in the month of June, 1846, at 
 Avondale, Itathdrum, the mansion now in his own possession. 
 
 As a child, his mother says, he showed an uncommon love of 
 study ; devoting far more time to his books than to the ordinary 
 sports of childhood. His memory was admirable, and he was by no 
 means deficient in wit and sprightliness. As a boy of ten he amused 
 hi3 fellow-passengers in a coach on a country road by comparing the 
 population and military strength of the various countries in Europe, 
 with a view to determining their respective chances in the event of 
 a general war. At this time, however, his mind ran less in the 
 direction of politics than toward mechanical science, and he amused 
 his friends and taxed his own mind not a little in the effort to solve 
 the problem of a perpetual moticn machine. Again, when he wanted 
 some bullets and had no mould in which to form them, he conceived 
 the idea of making them as shot is made—by dropping hot lead from 
 a high tower. The family knew nothing of his design till they were 
 startled by the butler’s cry—“ Come down there, you young rascal ! 
 What are you trying to do ?” and the next moment that worthy man 
 rushed up the winding staircase to the roof in time to save the in¬ 
 genious lad from breaking his neck by a fall of fifty feet to the ground 
 below, where, on the well-worn stones, lay a cake of flattened lead. 
 
 Another anecdote of the politician would cause a moment’s wonder 
 that he has not become a military rather than a civil leader of men. 
 The nursery at home was well garrisoned with Lilliputian soldiers, 
 of whom Charles commanded one well organised division, while his 
 sister directed the movements of another and opposing force. These 
 never came into actual conflict, but faced one another impassivety, 
 while their respective commanders peppered with popguns at the 
 enemy’s lines. For several days the war continued without ap¬ 
 parent advantage being gained by either side. One morning, how¬ 
 ever, heavy cannonading was heard in the furthest corner of the 
 room (produced by rolling a spiked ball across the floor). Pickets 
 were called in, and in three minutes from the firing of the first shot 
 there wa3 a general engagement all along the line. Strange as it 
 may seem, Miss Parnell’s soldiers fell by the score and hundred, 
 while those commanded by her brother refused to waver even when 
 palpably hit. This went on for some time, until, as she obstinately 
 refused to surrender, the young lady’s host was completely routed 
 and victory perched upon the standards of her foe. It was learned, 
 from his own confession an hour after this Waterloo, that Charles 
 had, before the battle began, glued his soldiers* feet securely to the 
 table. 
 
 c 
 
32 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 Following the un-Irish fashion of his caste—that of the upper 
 classes—John Henry Parnell determined to give his son an English 
 education. He seems to have been of opinion also that the process 
 of Anglicising could not be too soon begun on the child ; for at the 
 age of six little Charles was carried over to and left at a private 
 school near the picturesque little town of Yeovil in Somersetshire, 
 There he remained for about three years. A violent attack of ty¬ 
 phoid fever seized him at the Yeovil school, where he lay for weeks 
 at the point of death. His constitution never afterwards quite ral¬ 
 lied from the effects of that dreadful prostration ; and for years he 
 was considered absolutely a delicate boy. How he has borne up 
 under the accumulated fatigues, exertions, and travels undergone 
 during his active political career seems, when read in the light of 
 the fact last mentioned, but little short of the miraculous. 
 
 A couple of years spent amid the bracing airs of the Wicklow hills 
 restored him sufficiently to admit of his being again sent to school. 
 The place selected was again in England—namely, at a spot called 
 Kirk*Langley, near the town of Derby. Here he grew apace, spring¬ 
 ing up into a tall and slender young lad. As the time drew nigh 
 when it was meant that he should enter a university he was placed 
 under the care of the Rev. Mr. Whishaw, then residing at Chipping- 
 Norton, not far from the city of Oxford. This reverend gentiemau 
 afterwards became chaplain to the School for the Blind at Liverpool, 
 and enjoys the reputation of being one of the most celebrated pulpit 
 orators of that great enporium. 
 
 John Henry Parnell had entered the university of Cambridge him¬ 
 self ; and the same university he selected for his son Charles, who 
 matriculated there at the age of eighteen. It was the father’s wish 
 that his son should go to the bar ; but the son had no liking for the 
 lawyer’s life or work, and resolutely opposed the parental choice of 
 a destiny for him. He carried his point, almost as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 He remained but two years at the university, and so did not gra¬ 
 duate. Following in his father’s footsteps, he went abroad to see 
 the world, and travelled in the United States during the years 1S72 
 and 1873. 
 
 As a youth, Charles Stewart Parnell showed no particular interest 
 in the affairs of Ireland—how could he with such a denationalising 
 course of training as was inflicted on him ?—and when he discussed 
 Irish politics with his sisters he frequently took the Conservative 
 side, to annoy them in a harmless way. This humour sometimes 
 worried his mother, who, as she declares, has an American horror of 
 Toryism. Like his father, John Henry Parnell, Charles was a skil¬ 
 ful cricketer, and when at home always took part in the game, 
 which is much played in Wicklow. In those days he was something 
 of a wag, and would keep the table in a roar. 
 
 But in the November of 1867 an incident had occurred in Man¬ 
 chester which fastened itself on his memory—the execution of Allen, 
 Larkin, and O’Brien, As he had entered on manhood, and learned 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 33 
 
 to think seriously of men and events, he dwelt on “ the Manchester 
 three”and their cruel fate, and thought of the brief, pregnant prayer 
 which came from their lip3 as they hovered on the dizzy verge of 
 eternity—the immortal “God save Ireland !” At length he re¬ 
 solved to do what in him lay for her safety. He consulted with his 
 uncle Charles Stewart, then living in Paris, and his resolve re¬ 
 ceived the approval of the brave old admiral’s son. Next he laid 
 his intention before his mother ; and we need hardly observe that 
 Mrs. Delia Parnell was not the one to offer him opposition in such a 
 cause. Finally he took the step of joining the Home Rule League— 
 a*decisive one in many ways for him, but especially because it cut 
 him off as a political heretic from several near relatives with whom he 
 would naturally have wished to live in the closest unity, political 
 a3 well as social. 
 
 Having thus thrown in his lot with the people and their supreme 
 cause—the cause of self-government—he was eager to work and make 
 sacrifices in their behalf. The opportunity soon came. Immediately 
 after the general election of 1874, Colonel Taylor, one of the mem¬ 
 bers for Dublin County, having accepted a post in the Government, 
 it was needful that he should seek re-election. The country was then 
 full of spirit and hope, and it was determined that he should not have 
 his seat without a fight for it. But a candidate was wanted who 
 would be willing to spend money freely on the election, for the gene¬ 
 ral good of the cause, and in the full knowledge that for the ex¬ 
 penditure he must not expect a seat in the House of Commons. 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell was at hand. He was asked if he would 
 be the man in the gap on this occasion, and he willing'/ consented 
 to take up the uninviting position of a candidate foredoomed to 
 defeat. 
 
 Though the contest for Dublin county was from the first a hopeless 
 one on the Home Rule side, it was nevertheless deemed judicious to 
 hold a public meeting in Dublin in support of Mr. Parnell’s candi¬ 
 dature. If such a meeting could attain no other useful purpose it 
 would at least introduce the young and unknown politician to the 
 people he was so eager to serve. Accordingly, the council of the 
 Home Rule League convened a meeting in the Rotundo for the 
 afternoon of the 9th of March, 1874. On the occasion the room was 
 filled, early as was the hour ; the platform was thronged with an in¬ 
 fluential and representative assemblage, including many members of 
 Parliament. 
 
 As at this meeting Mr. Parnell made his first appearance before 
 the public, it is worthy of some notice in this narrative. Among 
 the M.P.’s present the most prominent were Honest John Martin ; 
 Isaac Butt, then in reality as well as in name the trusted leader of 
 the Irish people]; A. M. Sullivan, Mitchell Henry, and Richard 
 O’Shaughnessy. It was pretty generally known by then that Charles 
 Stewart Parnell was a scion of the family which had produced Sir 
 John, the stout and self-sacrificing foe of the Union, and Sir Henry, 
 the life-long advocate of Catholic equality ; so there was great en* 
 
34 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 thusiasm among those assembled on that day in the Rotundo in 
 favour of the relative of those two worthies who had come forward 
 to identify himself with the people and their cau3e. The popular 
 instinct, which is so seldom wrong in public affairs, hai seized on the 
 fact that the young man was the inheritor of great reputations and 
 unsullied memories, and inferred from it that he would follow in the 
 footsteps of his honoured predecessors, and that, in whatever else 
 he might fail, he might be relied on for honesty of purpose. This 
 was the reason why the room was thronged at an hour when men 
 in the city are usually minding their private business, as well as 
 why so deep an interest was taken in the object of the meeting. 
 
 To Mr. A. M. Sullivan was committed the duty of proposing the 
 first resolution, which warmly approved of the candidature of Mr. 
 Charles Stewart Parnell. The speaker had uttered but a few sen¬ 
 tences when there occurred one of those striking coincidences, 
 dramatic in their effect, which dwell for ever in the memory of be¬ 
 holders. Mr. Sullivan was expressing the delight that should be 
 felt and the hope that should be inspired by seeing the bearers of 
 historic names like that of Parnell coming back into the ranks of the 
 people ; when, just as the sentence was finished, a tall, slender youDg 
 man came through the doorway, and, looking neither to the righc 
 nor the left, began quietly making his way through the crowd 
 towards the platform. Of those in the room probably not a score 
 had ever seen him before, nor even heard his personal appearance 
 described ; yet, by some subtle process of intuition characteristic "of 
 the Irish mind, it at once became known among the mass of the large 
 gathering that the new arrival, so unostentatiously moving up the 
 room, was the very bearer of a historic name to whom Mr. Sullivan 
 had just referred. It was like the work of magic in its wondrous 
 suddenness. Every eye was fixed on the young man ; people stood 
 on tiptoe and craned their necks to get a view of him ; while cheer 
 after cheer resounded through the spacious hall, loud and long- 
 sustained, and threatening, if not to raise the roof off the place, at 
 Least to split the ears of ail in the assembly. Such a scene of en¬ 
 thusiastic but not disorderly animation is but rarely witnessed. 
 Eyes brightened, faces beamed, hats and handkerchiefs waved in 
 the air, voices were making themselves hoarse ; yet all the while 
 the object of the demonstration, with bent head and downcast eyes, 
 quietly pursued his way, as if unconscious of the honour paid him—or, 
 if conscious, as though he felt it unfitting to receive popular rewards 
 before he had done enough to deserve them. Yet it was plain that 
 hi3 feelings were deeply moved by his reception; for when he 
 stepped on to the platform he was pale, and indeed exhibited the 
 appearance of agitation. When, after the last burst of cheering, 
 Mr. Sullivan, resuming his interrupted speech, confirmed the in¬ 
 stinct of the audience by saying that literally as well as figuratively 
 his friend Mr. Parnell had come among them, there was another 
 enthusiastic outburst, prolonged and deafening ; and before it wa3 
 over some of the thoughtful present were asking themselves if a 
 
C. S. PAENELL, M.P. 
 
 35 
 
 great public career lay not before this modest-looking youthful poli¬ 
 tician, whose very presence, unheralded, unannounced, could take 
 captive public confidence in a manner so remarkable. As for the 
 mass, they waited with impatience for the speech they expected him 
 to deliver. 
 
 The time came for him to speak, and he rose to his feet to make 
 his first public deliverance, amid a tempest of cheers. All present 
 saw that he was labouring under strong emotion, for his colour came 
 and went, and his breast heaved perceptibly. We can fancy the 
 thoughts which stirred the fountains of feeling within him to their 
 veriest depths. He had resolved to devote himself to his people, 
 to work for them with all his might; and here, at the very outset of 
 his career—before, as it were, he had yet actually put his hand to 
 the plough—was he receiving an earnest of the gratitude which the 
 Irish people are ever ready to lavish on all who have even tried 
 honestly to serve them. No doubt he knew that the good deeds of 
 Sir John and Sir Henry Parnell had paved the way for him to the 
 core cf the people’s hearts; and no doubt also he inly resolved at 
 that moment that he would leave behind him at least the repute of 
 being as much “ a man of integrity” as any one of his forefathers. 
 At all events, whatever his thoughts may have been, he was con¬ 
 siderably unnerved ; for when he began to speak it was in broken 
 sentences, and in a voice that faltered with excess of feeling. 
 
 It was a scene to be long remembered. There, on the front of the 
 platform, by the chairman’s table, he stood, tall, slender, pale, lofty 
 |of forehead, his lips unquivering, his chin firm and resolute-looking, 
 his bosom labouring, his brown eyes flashing over the throng, his 
 back well set up, and indeed with a carriage that suggested a mili¬ 
 tary training. And while in the excitement of that moment—an 
 excitement the exact like of which he could never again know—his 
 tongue grew unwilling to express his thoughts, and forced him to 
 hesitate and to pause, a painfully intent silence fell on the anxious 
 audience. In the chair was O’Gorman Mahon, sitting with soldierly 
 erectness in spite of his advanced years, and with a piercing gaze 
 fixed on the faltering novice. From the right of the platform 
 kindly as well as “honest” John Martin surveyed the young Pro¬ 
 testant patriot, with a benignant smile illuminating his grave, sweet 
 countenance ; the homely, genial face of Isaac Butt beamed with 
 overflowing good-nature; the blue eyes of Alexander Sullivan 
 glowed in eager sympathy, while his whole air indicated to ob¬ 
 servers an intense desire to spring to the aid of the speaker and to 
 invest him with his own power of apt and fluent expression ; Mitchell 
 Henry, too, from the left of the platform, exhibited an unmistakably 
 kindly interest in the young speaker, whose native modesty and 
 excited feelings combined to impair his delivery of the thoughts 
 surging in his brain. Indeed every eye was riveted on him, both 
 from the platform and from the floor of the hall; and though a great 
 many were critising unfavourably his first effort as a public speaker, 
 it must be admitted that there was something in his appearance 
 
36 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 which impressed everyone favourably, for everyone undoubtedly 
 cheered him without stint. 
 
 When the meeting broke up there was a good deal of discussion 
 among groups of the assemblage concerning the chances of the can¬ 
 didate’s success in public life. The verdict of many, who had noted 
 only his faltering utterance and his broken sentences, was, “That 
 young man will be a failure. He can’t speak.” But the shrewder, 
 who had noted the firm set-up of fhis back and the resolute rigidity 
 of mouth and chin, more sagely observed, “ There is something iu that 
 young man. It will come out in time. Wait and see.*’ Which 
 section was right all know now. 
 
 The Dublin county election at which Mr. Parnell was a candidate 
 is hardly worth referring to further now than to say that, as was 
 expected, he was beaten. It is very well known that the Tories of 
 that county look carefully after the Parliamentary register, year by 
 year ; while, on the other hand, hundreds on hundreds of men pos¬ 
 sessing popular sympathies, and having the needful electoral quali¬ 
 fications, are too apathetic to take the trouble to attend at revision 
 sessions to secure their undoubted right to vote. It must suffice to 
 say that when the polling day had come and gone, and the votes 
 cast had been counted, it was found that Colonel Taylor had received 
 2 ,122; that Mr. Parnell’s tally was only 1,141 ; and consequently 
 that the former had been returned by a majority of 981. 
 
 One feature of this contested election must still retain a strong 
 interest for every reader. We allude to Mr. Parnell’s candidatorial 
 address to the constituency. Few people have ever dreamt of re- 
 ferring'jto it since his defeat; and yet it cannot but be important to 
 know on what publicly announced principles he began his political 
 career. They furnish a safe test both of his honesty in adopting 
 them and his consistency in adhering to them. We have pleasure 
 therefore in reproducing the main portions of this address, which we 
 are confident our readers will welcome with equal pleasure 
 
 “ Upon the great question of Home Rule I will by all means seek 
 the restoration to Ireland of our domestic Parliament, upon the basis 
 of the resolutions passed at the National Conference last November, 
 and the principles of the Home Rule League, of which I am a mem¬ 
 ber. 
 
 “If elected to Parliameut I will give my cordial adherence to the 
 resolutions adopted at the recent conference of Irish members, and 
 will act independently alike of all English parties. 
 
 “ I will earnestly endeavour to obtain for Ireland a system of edu¬ 
 cation in all its branches—university, intermediate, and primary— 
 which will deal impartially with all religious denominations, by 
 affording to every parent the opportunity of obtaining for his child 
 an education combined with that religious teaching of which his 
 conscience approves. 
 
 “ I believe security for his tenure and the fruits of his industry to 
 be equally necessary to do justice to the tenant and to promote the 
 prosperity of the whole community. 1 will therefore support such 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 37 
 
 an extension of the ancient and historic tenant-right of Ulster, in all 
 its integrity, to the other parts of Ireland, as will secure to the 
 tenant continuous occupation at fair rents.” 
 
 In addition he promised to work for “a complete and uncondi¬ 
 tional amnesty and, after a graceful reference to the efforts made 
 by his relatives Sir John and Sir Henry for the good of the Irish 
 people, he concluded : 
 
 “ If you elect me I will endeavour, and think I can promise, that 
 no act of mine will ever discredit the name which has been asso¬ 
 ciated with these recollections,” 
 
 No need to ask now whether any act of his has since discredited 
 that name. Has he fulfilled both in letter and spirit those early 
 pledges given when a young untried man ? Has he sought the resto¬ 
 ration of our domestic Parliament “ by all means” ? Has he acted 
 “independently alike of all English parties”? Has he been idle in 
 reference to the land question? Was he “ behind the door” in re¬ 
 gard to the amnesty ? Has he neglected the cause of religious 
 equality in education? Most of our readers remember enough of 
 the political life of the last five years to give to all of these questions 
 such answers as could not fail to be complimentary to Mr, Charles 
 Stewart Parnell. Yet in the crush and hurry of the time people forget 
 many things which are worth recollection ; and we purpose in this 
 narrative to recall several such things to their memories—events of 
 deep interest and great importance to the Irish nation. 
 
 After the Dublin election nothing was heard by the public of Mr, 
 Parnell till John Mitchel came over from America, after his long 
 exile, to beard the British lion in his den by seeking the representa¬ 
 tion of Tipperary county. Two circumstances in connection with 
 | that event roused Charles Parnell to active sympathy on the rebel 
 candidate’s behalf. One was the opportunity given of striking a re¬ 
 sounding blow against British domination in Ireland ; the other was 
 the indomitable, unconquerable spirit of Mitchel himself, so near 
 akin to Mr. Parnell’s own. On this occasion he emerged from the 
 privacy into which he had retired after the Dublin county election, 
 in an admirably written letter to the papers, announcing his hearty 
 approbation of Mitchel’s course, and giving £25 towards the ex¬ 
 penses of the contest which Mr. Stephen Moore of Barna forced on 
 “ the premier county,” 
 
 Tipperary put Mitchel at the head of the poll by an immense ma¬ 
 jority, but he died, alas ! in the arms of victory. At his funeral his 
 brother in-law, political colleague, and fellow-convict, John Martin, 
 was seized with a mortal illness, and within a week followed him to 
 the grave. John Martin’s death took place the 29th of March, ’75. 
 Ireland was stricken with sorrow ; but Meath county bewailed a 
 special loss, for in gentle John Martin she had had a representative 
 as honest and earnest, as upright and firm, as ever championed the 
 cause of “Ireland a nation” in the London House of Commons. To 
 find a fitting successor for such a man was no easy task ; but by a 
 happy stroke of fortune Charles Stewart Parnell, having been recoin- 
 
33 
 
 C. S, PABXELL, M.P. 
 
 mended by the council of the Home Rule League, was adopted as 
 the popular candidate by a large representative meeting of the elec¬ 
 torate. Another Home Ruler, a solicitor of much local influence, 
 opposed him ; and a Tory gentleman of the county, beholding a 
 prospect of division in the national ranks, and fancying that he might 
 be able to slip into the seat through the split, also took the field. 
 When, on the 19:h of April, 1375, the votes having been counted, 
 the declaration of the poll was made, it was found that the num¬ 
 bers were—Charles Stewart Parnell, Home Ruler, 1,771 ; J. L. 
 27aper, Tory, 902 ; J. T. Hinds, Home Ruler, 133; from which 
 figures it will be seen that the mas3 of the electors refused to play 
 tne game of the common enemy by fighting among themselves. 
 
 There wa3 tremendous rejoicing in Royal Meath over the victory. 
 Enthusiastic crowds assembled iu thousands to give vent to a com¬ 
 mon feeling of delight ; bonfires blazed in many quarters ; and the 
 populace of Trim, in which town the declaration of the poll had been 
 made, having discovered Mr. Parnell walking down from the paro¬ 
 chial house to his hotel, laid lovingly violent hands on him, carried 
 him in triumph round their own special bonhre in the market square, 
 and finally set him standing on the head of a cask to speak a few 
 words to them. To those acquainted with the Irish nature it is un¬ 
 necessary to say that no such wild familiarity would have been taken 
 with him if during the course of his canvas he had not become a 
 popular favourite. 
 
 Mr. Parnell did not delay to receive congratulations on his suc¬ 
 cess. Parliament was in session at the period of his election, and, 
 moreover, the Government had just then in hands a Coercion Bill for 
 Ireland. Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar had determined that this pro¬ 
 posed tyrannical enactment should be met with a stiff resistance. 
 Therefore the new member for Meath, who meant work, not plea¬ 
 sure, hurried over to London, formally took hi3 seat, and was in 
 good time to record his first vote against the ‘Coercion Bill on the 
 22nd of April, 1S75. As he was in Trim on the night of the 19th, 
 it i3 plain'.that he “did not let the grass grow under his feet, - ’ to 
 use an expressive Irish phrase. 
 
 The struggle over the Coercion Bill was stout and prolonged. Mr. 
 Biggar began it with the famous four hours’ speech which drove the 
 assembled Commons at Westminster into alternate flushes of rage 
 and despair. That struggle was the first taste they had got of what 
 has since been called “Obstruction”—a word which merely ex¬ 
 presses briefly that it i3 within the power of even a few resolute 
 Irish members of Parliament to prevent any administration from 
 having everything it3 own way, That struggle further showed that 
 even a score of resolute Irish members could at least prevent any¬ 
 thing approaching to bad measures for their country. It remained 
 for Mr. Parnell afterwards to prove that good measures could also 
 be obtained by a continued pursuance of the same method. 
 
 Only on the 11th of April did the bill get through the House of 
 Commons, after a consumption of Government time which caused in 
 
c. s. pakneUj, m.p. 39 
 
 Great Britain a feeliDg of positive dismay. There were of course a 
 large number of divisions over the various amendments proposed ; 
 and it is to be recorded to the credit of Charles Stewart Parnell 
 that, even at the very outset of his Parliamentary career, he was 
 present, and took the Irish side, in every one of those divisions. 
 Others there were of his colleagues, much more advanced in years, 
 infinitely better known to the public, and possessing the full confi¬ 
 dence of too confiding constituencies, who were absent again and 
 again with no better cause than a desire to take their pleasure in 
 London drawingrooms. But he stood up to his work with a diligence 
 from which they might have taken example. The rest of the session 
 passed over without anything remarkable being done by “the Irish 
 party’’ in Parliament; and during that period Mr. Parnell was by 
 far more constant in his attendance than the majority of his fellow- 
 members. He did not address the House ; but employed himself 
 much in mastering its cumbrous and intricate forms and the rules 
 which guide its course of procedure. 
 
 Now there was a representative of Cork city, who, having been a 
 hot revolutionist in ’48, had taken refuge under the stars and stripes, 
 and dwelt in America for many years, in the practice of hi3 profes¬ 
 sion of civil engineer. Having amassed a fortune, he returned to his 
 native land, and set up his habitation on the banks of the beautiful 
 Lee. He had profited by contact with the shrewd American mind ; 
 and when he had observed the London Commons for some time he 
 came to a conclusion which he expressed in pretty much the follow¬ 
 ing fashion : 
 
 “ You will never get them to listen to you until you begin to take 
 as active an interest in English affairs as they take in Irish ones. I 
 am too old to have the necessary energy for the work. Why don’t 
 isome of you young fellows try it?” 
 
 The man who said this was generally spoken of with affectionate 
 familiarity as “ Honest Joe Bonayne.” Peace to his ashes ! He died 
 in the Spring of 1876. He loved Ireland well, and served her well 
 too, and will be long borne in her grateful memory. 
 
 Charles Parnell beard the saying, and pondered deeply on it. The 
 more he thought of it the more it appeared like a revelation ; until 
 at length he determined that, since the practised speakers among 
 the Irish members seemed to shrink from the labour involved, he 
 himself would test the wisdom of Joe Ronayne’s dictum. With this 
 view he set himself to looking out for some Government measure in 
 which he could take a tremendous interest. He eventually chose the 
 English Prisons Bill, which proposed to hand over the management 
 of local prisons to the executive ; and he made the selection with a 
 view to first modifying it to his desires, and afterwards insisting that 
 the Irish Prisons Bill which was to follow should be modelled on 
 the precedent thus afforded. For it occurred to Mr. Parnell that the 
 time of political prosecutions in Ireland had not yet passed away, 
 and that it would be wise to prepare for occurrences of the kind, to 
 the extent at least of saving those convicted of sedition from the 
 
40 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 indignities and maltreatment to which theretofore they had been 
 invariably subjected in Irish jails. 
 
 We have previously intimated that Mr. Parnell had little or no 
 experience in public speaking. From native modesty, or a diffidence 
 in his own powers, he shrank from obtruding himself on audiences 
 accustomed to being addressed by orators, rhetoricians, and prac¬ 
 tised debaters. But to carry out the scheme of tactics which was 
 slowly maturing in his mind it was absolutely needful to gain such 
 experience; and to the task he began to set himself at the beginning 
 of the Parliamentary session of 1876. The strength of his purpose 
 impelled him to surmount every obstacle that lay in his path; so 
 he made use of the House of Commons as a debating society in 
 which he might acquire ease and fluency of public address. 
 
 The first opportunity of which he took advantage was of a kind 
 peculiarly grateful to him. It was supplied by the very first of the 
 resolute struggles to which some members of the Irish Parliamen¬ 
 tary party have since very often treated the assembled Commons of 
 Westminster, and which have received from the newspapers the ex¬ 
 pressive designation “ scenes in the House.’’ 
 
 The “scene” to which reference is now made arose in this way. 
 Early in each session the Commons elect members to sit on various 
 committes having certain duties to discharge in connection with the 
 business of the House. The Whig and Tory party leaders usually 
 agreed beforehand on a list of members for each committee, taken 
 impartially from the ranks of both parties in fair proportion to their 
 respective numbers ; with the result that when the elections came 
 on each name was passed simply as a matter of course—such a thing 
 as taking a division against anyone being almost unheard of. The 
 formation of a third party—the Home Rule one—disturbed the 
 little arrangement mentioned; and at the beginning of 1876 both 
 Whigs and Tories combined totally to ignore the existence of that 
 third party by drawing no members of committees from its ranks. 
 Some of the Irish representatives made up their minds to resent this 
 grossly unfair course of the English party managers by indis¬ 
 criminately challenging every name put up for election. 
 
 Late on the night of Monday, the 6th of March, there being at 
 the time but six members of the Irish party present—of whom, as 
 might be expected, the ever-diligent Charles Stewart Parnell was 
 one—a motion was made “That the select committee on referees 
 on private bills do consist of twenty-one members.” Absurdly few 
 as were the Home Rulers on the spot, they determined to fight the 
 matter out with resolution, and to teach the Whig and Tory con¬ 
 spirators a lesson they would not soon forget. Mr. A. M. Sullivan 
 promptly rose to his feet, and moved that the number of the com¬ 
 mittee should be twenty-three instead of twenty-one, with the object 
 of adding on two of his own party. The gage of battle thus thrown 
 down was quickly taken np by the overwhelming majority furnished 
 from the ranks of the two British parties, united for the occasion, 
 as usual, in doing an injustice to the Irish. They won in the divi* 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 41 
 
 sion of course, although on the Irish side there voted several fair- 
 minded Englishmen—there are fair-minded Englishmen even in the 
 London House of Commons—whose aid brought the Irish muster up 
 to twenty-one. 
 
 Immediately “the scene” began. Every name put up was chal¬ 
 lenged in turn, and a division taken on it. What that meant, and 
 how great was the loss of time it involved, will be understood when 
 we say that previous to each division two minutes are allowed 
 before the closing of the entrance door of the House, to allow of 
 members rushing in from the bar, the dining-room, the smoke-room, 
 the library, and so forth, to take part in the division, although they 
 may not have the faintest idea of what it is about. The members 
 are warned of each division by the ringing of bells setup for the pur¬ 
 pose. When the door is closed, the Commons file slowly into two 
 great corridors known as “the division lobbies,” one devoted to the 
 “ ayes” and the other to the “ noes.” In the entrance to these lob¬ 
 bies stand the respective “tellers,” who stop each member as he 
 passes, and take down his name. When the names are all entered, 
 they are very carefully counted, all return to the chamber where 
 sits Mr. Speaker, and the numbers for and against are announced. 
 There is usually some cheering after each announcement; and when 
 that is over the House proceeds again to business. Each division 
 ordinarily takes about fifteen minutes. 
 
 From the above it will easily be seen that if a number of divisions 
 be taken in a night, not only is “ the time of the House” consumed, 
 but a good deal of enforced pedestrianism falls to the lot of mem¬ 
 bers, many of whom from one cause or other may not be very well 
 able to walk, especially in the small hours of the morning. And it 
 was precisely to such consumption of time and such enforced pedes¬ 
 trianism the resolute Irish six condemned their unscrupulous Whig 
 and Tory opponents. Naturally these latter became annoyed under 
 the punishment they were receiving, and a good deal of temper was 
 displayed. It is in the midst of one of the short but warm discus¬ 
 sions of the night that we find the first record of Mr. Parnell ad¬ 
 dressing his fellow-Commoners. The hour was one at which Parlia¬ 
 mentary reporters do not trouble themselves to take down the say¬ 
 ings of members in full, therefore the record is extremely brief; 
 but one phrase of it is so characteristic of Mr. Parnell that there is 
 hardly room for doubt that it was reported in the exact words which 
 fell from his lips. The report goes : 
 
 f “ Mr. Parnell said they had deliberately adopted this course, and 
 
 they would stick to it.” 
 
 Significant words indeed, if his hearers but knew their full mean¬ 
 ing when coming from him. And stick to it he did. Respect for 
 not a name on the list was shown. Division followed division with 
 a regularity beyond all praise. The weary Britishers walked in and 
 out of their lobby muttering execrations on the heads of those ob¬ 
 stinate Irish who still kept up the battle, and would not acknowledge 
 themselves vanquished. The counting of British noses was a toil- 
 
42 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 some process, there were so many of them. On the Irish side the 
 counting was easy indeed, for their English allies fell away after the 
 first division, and the Home Rule tellers had only five names to put 
 down; after the twelfth the number fell to three. 
 
 A compromise was suggested; bub the Britishers, who would have 
 been glad to agree to it an hour earlier, were now thoroughly irate ; 
 in defiance of Dr. Watts, they had “let their angry passions rise 
 and with their tremendous majority they were resolved not to give 
 way an inch. Appeals were made to the Irish to cease a hopeless 
 struggle ; and then, we read in the report : 
 
 “ Mr. Parnell said the compromise had been refused, and the fight 
 should go on.” 
 
 And on it went steadily ; the Irish cool but determined, the Bri¬ 
 tishers wild with rage, and now and again giving angry vent to their 
 excited feelings. The gallant Major O’Gorman led his division of 
 three into the lobby, having called on the hon. member for Meath 
 to be his co-teller. The hon. member for Meath gladly obliged his 
 hon. and gallant friend. The thirteenth division was taken, and 
 still the fight was not at an end. The fourteenth followed, and then 
 the fifteenth ; and when, at a quarter past four in the morning, the 
 result of the sixteenth was announced, the angriest Whig or Tory of 
 them all had been brought to his senses. Though the names pro¬ 
 posed were every one carried, and in that sense the Britishers might 
 congratulate themselves on winning several petty successes, yet the 
 end for which the few Irish struggled wa3 achieved—the exclusion 
 of members of their party had to be given up—the attempt to ignore 
 the existence of a distinct third party in the House was defeated— 
 and in that sense, the true one, victory was with the Irish, their 
 operations had been successful, and they had conquered all alorg the 
 line. 
 
 It wa3 during this session of 1876 that Mr. Parnell began to culti¬ 
 vate that devotion to the Governmental estimates for which he after¬ 
 wards became so distinguished. There were many “ great debates” 
 got up that year by the Home Rule party—field-day displays which 
 gave the do-nothings an opportunity of posing before their consti¬ 
 tuents as zealous servants, through the easy means of letting off in 
 the House elaborate speeches to which no one paid any attention 
 during their deliverance, but which were pretty certain to find their 
 way into the columns of the Irish press, and to [receive ;therein an 
 amount of space which gave them a solid, substantial, responsible 
 look, calculated to impress the minds of admiring but extremely 
 simple electors to the West of St. George’s Channel. Of course we 
 are not to be understood as attributing no value whatever to such 
 debates. On the contrary, they have their use, and are indeed at 
 times necessary. But if there ends the work of Irish members in 
 the English Parliament the advantage of the field-days is small in¬ 
 deed. Mr. Parnell allowed anyone who chose to tike a prominent 
 part in those displays. For himself he did not care for them. He 
 saw that hypocrites systematically made use of them for the purpose 
 
> 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 43 
 
 of throwing dust in the eyes of their constituencies, so he merely 
 closed his lips more tightly, and waited with what patience he 
 might for the crushing defeat sure to follow on the division—for 
 which, however, he took care to be on hand. But he did active 
 work when the House went into committee, and contrived to make 
 himself by sheer practice an excellent debater. And when he felt 
 the needful confidence in himself he proposed on his own responsi¬ 
 bility a motion in favour of the political prisoners, which he sup¬ 
 ported in a telling speech, powerful not only in argument but in the 
 unusual boldness of the tone which struck the ears of the British 
 Commons, The date of this effort to redeem the pledge regarding 
 amnesty given in his earliest address as a Parliamentary candidate 
 was the 22nd of May, 1876. 
 
 In his speech on this occasion—which may be regarded as his first 
 sustained effort at speech-making—he made such references to the 
 trials consequent on the rescue of Kelly and Deasy from the police 
 van at Manchester as startled most of his hearers. One of them, 
 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, bore Mr. 
 Parnell’s remarks bitterly in mind; and when, in the Home Buie 
 debate on the 30th June, the torpid English baronet rose to speak 
 against the Irish claim, he lugged in by the horns, as it were, a 
 direct allusion to what Mr. Parnell had said on the 22nd of May 
 previously. This proceeding of Secretary Beach was a distinct 
 breach of a rule of the London House of Commons which prohibits 
 members from referring to any previous debate of the same ses¬ 
 sion ; yet, singular to relate, he was not called to order by any autho¬ 
 rity of the assembly. However, Sir Michael of the retentive 
 memory but little knew at that time the kind of man whom he 
 had singled out for a thrust. He, as well as every one of his col¬ 
 leagues, is better informed by now, and none, we fancy, would go 
 out of his way to assail the hon. member for Meath. Even at that 
 time the baronet was not allowed to remain long undeceived ; for 
 Mr. Parnell rose to his feet on the instant, interrupted Sir Michael, 
 and calmly retorted as follows : 
 
 “ The right hon. gentleman looked at me so directly when he said 
 he regretted that any member of this House should apologise for 
 murder, that I wish to say, as publicly and directly as I can, that I 
 do not believe, and never shall, that any murder was committed at 
 Manchester.” 
 
 It will be remembered that it was the fate of the Manchester 
 Three which first set Mr. Parnell thinking seriously of Ireland and 
 her unhappy destinies; and at no time since has he been prepared 
 to listen silently to any defamation concerning them. The impru¬ 
 dent Secretary, on hearing the observation quoted above, seemed 
 for a while like one who had received a good box on the ear; he 
 stammered out a Parliamentary paraphrase of “ I didn’t know you’d 
 take it that way, I’m sure and then, carefully avoiding any fur¬ 
 ther allusion to either the Manchester cases or the hon. member 
 for Meath, addressed himself to his subject proper. 
 
44 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 One other feature of Mr, Parnell's conduct during this session of 
 1876 deserves notice here. He attended strictly to party discipline. 
 Whenever there were meetings of the Irish party he was present; 
 whatever the decision arrived at by the majority he helped to carry 
 it out. Nay, on occasions—and there was at least one—when Mr. 
 Butt earnestly wished his followers to abstain altogether from voting 
 on Imperial questions, so as to preserve intact the individuality of 
 the party, and to exhibit its strength conspicuously to both Whigs 
 and Tories; and when men like MacCarthy Downing and Major 
 O'Gorman obstinately refused to be led by their leader, and insisted 
 on their right to vote with ithe English party of their choice ; Mr. 
 Parnell was one of the small faithful band who followed Mr. Butt in 
 a body out of the chamber when the bells for the division were set 
 a-ringing; as, for instance, after the debate on the proclamation 
 giving to Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India—a debate 
 which came off on the 11th of May, 1876. 
 
 Yet at the very time that Mr, Parnell, for the sake of union, 
 submitted so willingly to the bonds of party discipline, and obeyed 
 with such alacrity the wishes expressed by the party leader, he wa3 
 conscious that all was not well in that organisation, and he had 
 already begun a kind of guerilla warfare against the House of Com¬ 
 mons, in conjunction with his staunch friend and ally, sturdy 
 Joseph Biggar, one of the members for Cavan. He was also pro¬ 
 jecting a sterner struggle for the next session. He had mastered 
 the “ rules of the House he had had practice in debate, both in 
 Parliament and in the^consulting rooms of the Irish party ; his diffi¬ 
 dence had been torn away in the conflicts wherein he had engaged ; 
 self-consciousness had been driven off, and in its stead there re¬ 
 mained only the rapidly growing power of his unflinching purpose. 
 His laborious attendance in Parliament for several consecutive 
 months compelled a brief rest for a couple of weeks in June; but 
 he was back in his place in time for the Land Bill and for the Home 
 Rule debate in which he so bewildered Sir Michael Hicks-Beach 
 towards the end of that month. 
 
 So far he was comparatively unknown to the general Irish public ; 
 but keen observers of political events had noted his course ; and 
 when, in the August of ’76, the Home Rule Confederation of Great 
 Britain, to test the practical value of the Irish Convention Act, since 
 repealed, determined to hold their annual convention in Dublin, it 
 was Charles Stewart Parnell who was put into the second chair at 
 their public meeting in the evening, when the vote of thanks was 
 proposed to Isaac Butt for presiding, although there were several 
 other members of Parliament present, whose age and acknowledged 
 standing in the political world were much beyond Mr. Parnell’s. 
 
 During the Winter of 1866-7 he reflected much on Joe Ronayne’s 
 pithy saying, and gradually improved his plan of operations against 
 the anti-Irish majority in the London House of Commons. While 
 still adhering to his intention to take an active interest in purely 
 English affairs, he saw his way also to working successfully for the 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 45 
 
 benefit of Irish ones. Since the formation of the Irish party a ses¬ 
 sional “ rule of the House” had been framed to prevent measures 
 from going forward a stage after half-past twelve at night if notice 
 of opposition of any kind had been formally given. It seemed to 
 be a most innocent rule —a rule devised to let members go off home to 
 bed at some approach to reputable hours—a rule, in fact, with 
 which no respectable man, be he member of Parliament or not, could 
 quarrel. As a matter of fact, however, it was employed to stay the 
 passage of the various bills brought in by the Irish party ; notice 
 of opposition having been promptly given to every one of them, while 
 other bills of all kinds remained unopposed. The rule had been 
 found to work so well in the way intended that it was again trium¬ 
 phantly passed at the opening of the session of 1877. Forthwith 
 Mr. Parnell and Mr, Biggar indiscriminately gave formal notice of 
 opposition to a score of English and Imperial bills, by which simple 
 tactical proceeding they brought them all under the operation of the 
 half-past twelve rule, and so checkmated the wily British schemers. 
 The cry of “ obstruction” was at once raised by those injured inno¬ 
 cents ; vague but dreadful punishments on the offending pair were 
 darkly menaced in the British prints ; cold looks from the majority 
 of their own colleagues, and angry ones from the great mass of Bri¬ 
 tish members, met Messrs. Parnell and Biggar for their spirited but 
 most natural action; everything was done by friend and foe alike 
 to make their position most unpleasant; yet, though they did not 
 revel, as Mark Tapley might have done, in the annoyances that 
 incessantly met them—indeed, if the plain truth is to be told, they 
 felt the bolts keenly enough when shot by their own colleagues— 
 they held persistently in the course on which they had entered, and 
 dug a deep grave for that “ rule of the House” which had been so 
 craftily utilised to hamper the bills brought in by the Irish party. 
 
 It is quite possible—nay, even probable—that there are many peo¬ 
 ple who believe that Mr. Parnell’s zeal in the cause of Irish peasant- 
 proprietorship is a new thing—that the idea is one he suddenly 
 adopted merely to gain access of popularity—that, in short, he had 
 no real conviction on the question when [early in 1879 he began to 
 advocate it so strenuously. Well, to such doubters of his good faith 
 in the matter we commend the fact that on the 14th of February, 
 1877, he urged the British House of Commons to assent to the 
 second reading of a bill whose provisions were wholly directed 
 towards making more easy the conversion of tenant-farmers into pea- 
 , sant proprietors. The title of the bill was “The Irish Church Act 
 Amendment Billand its sole object was to amend the Church 
 Disestablishment Act in such a/way that those tenants who held the 
 glebe lands should have much greater facilities and inducements for 
 becoming owners than the Act originally afforded. His able state¬ 
 ment converted a great many British members to his views. In the 
 division 110 followed him into the lobby, of whom but 39 were his 
 party colleagues. Only 150 in all voted against his bill. Though 
 he did not win a complete victory over British prejudice, he helped 
 
46 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 very materially to bring the principle of Irish peasant-proprietorship 
 to the front; and in any case he then put beyond question the. good 
 faith of his subsequent advocacy of that solution of the Irish land 
 problem. 
 
 V Before reverting to Mr. Parnell’s Parliamentary career in 1S77— 
 which was a most notable one indeed—we must refer, however 
 briefly, to a very interesting event in which he figured prominently, 
 and which could not but have had some effect, not only on the re¬ 
 sults [of his American mission in 1879, but also in deepening and 
 widening the kindly relations between Ireland and the United 
 States. In the Autumn of 1876 the project was mooted of sending 
 from the Irish people a congratulatory address to the States on the 
 centenary of their independence. It was known in Ireland that the 
 people of the Union meant to celebrate that glorious hundredth 
 anniversary with unparalleled displays of public rejoicing; and 
 with those rejoicings the Irish, so long suffering from the loss of 
 their own independence, could more than any other people in 
 Europe keenly sympathise. It was resolved to put that sympathy 
 in evidence in a form that would endure. No sooner was the pro¬ 
 ject mooted in the press than its promoters found it so warmly and 
 widely taken up that they conceived they had absolutely national 
 sanction for the undertaking. An enormous mass meeting of the 
 citizens of the Irish metropolis adopted the address “ from the Irish 
 nation,*’ which was inscribed to President Grant as the chief repre¬ 
 sentative of the Union. Messrs. Parnell and O’Connor Power 
 were deputed a3 the bearers of this historical document, which was 
 richly illuminated on parchment and splendidly framed. 
 
 The two gentlemen proceeded on their mission towards the close 
 of 1S76. Arrived]at their destination they found themselves con¬ 
 fronted by obstacles which hindered them from fulfilling the trust 
 confided to them. President Grant declined to receive the address 
 from its bearers. If he should accept it at all on behalf of the Ame¬ 
 rican people it should come through the British ambassador at 
 Washington. It was roundly asserted at the time that the said am¬ 
 bassador had himself raised this difficulty for the two Irish envoys. 
 However that may be, Messrs. Parnell and Power could see nothing 
 but a wild incongruity in presenting through a British ambassador 
 an address congratulating a people on having been fortunate enough 
 to fling off 'the British yoke, and coming from a people who were 
 themselves struggling to get rid of British domination. The Pre¬ 
 sident stood firm in the position he had taken up. The two Irish¬ 
 men would on no account agree to the condition he imposed; and 
 to ordinary observers it seemed as if the mission must turn out a 
 conspicuous failure. 
 
 But those who knew^something of Mr. Parnell’s energy and readi¬ 
 ness of resource did not believe he would be so easily baffled; nor 
 were they mistaken. Cancelling the illuminated parchment brought 
 from Dublin, he got another illuminated, paying for it from his own 
 purse ; and in this copy of the address he substituted for the super- 
 
! C. S, PARNELL, M.P. 47 
 
 scription to President Grant one to the people of the States. This 
 he determined to have accepted, if possible, by the House of Repre¬ 
 sentatives at Washington. In the end his change of tactics proved 
 eminently successful; although, being anxious to prove his new 
 scheme of policy against the tyrant majority in the British House 
 of Commons, he recrossed the Atlantic before the reception of the 
 address by Congress, 
 
 The session of 1877 was the most memorable for extraordinary 
 scenes in British Parliamentary history. Beginning with the op¬ 
 position of Messrs, Parnell and Biggar to “the half-past twelve 
 rule,” and concluding with the famous twenty-two hours’ debate on 
 the South African Bill, there occurred a succession of unexampled 
 episodes, in every one of which Mr, Parnell was a prominent figure. 
 It was from no love of notoriety that the energetic member for Meath 
 took such a conspicuous part in those unusual proceedings. We have 
 already said that he knew that all was not well with the Home Rule 
 party. The utter indifference to the interests of their country dis¬ 
 played by the majority of them was a perpetual goad to him. Other 
 members of the party also had been galled by that indifference— 
 Mr. Biggar notably so. Mr. A. M, Sullivan had commented on 
 it in the press as delicately as he might, only with the effect of 
 evoking a tumult against himself from those whose consciences 
 pointed them out as culprits. Even Mr. Butt, although he totally 
 disapproved of the new tactics inaugurated by Messrs, Parnell and 
 Biggar, was yet most painfully aware of the want of earnestness and 
 genuineness of too many of his followers. In private he often spoke 
 bitterly about the discouraging fact; and once at least he gave 
 vent to his feelings in.public. At a banquet given to him in Dublin 
 in the first week of February, 1877, he alluded, in the course of a 
 magnificent speech, to the remissness of the majority of the party, 
 in terms which it must prove interesting to the reader to have now 
 recalled. He said :— 
 
 “ I hope that during the ensuing session we shall have a full at¬ 
 tendance of Irish members—such an attendance as shall enable U3 
 to act effectively in the small hours of the morning, when discus¬ 
 sing in Parliament the questions in which we are so interested. It 
 is not in great parades the battle of Ireland is to be fought. The 
 man does not serve Ireland who comes over only two or thre# time3 
 in the session. The cause is not served by such a man, even though 
 he take the opportunity of making a grand speech. Many men 
 have done far wiser in making no speeches at all, but who have been 
 always present at the hour of need—present at any hour of the morn¬ 
 ing when their services were of material use to the cause of their 
 country. Now I do think I have a right to ask the attention of the 
 Irish people. Give me whole-hearted support—give me whole¬ 
 hearted support—no half-hearted support—or rather, if you will, 
 infuse into half-hearted supporters the whole of your own support; 
 and then when the day does come, when the struggle is passed, 
 when future generations will pronounce their judgment on the part 
 
 D 
 
 
43 C. S, PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 acted by an individual so humble as myself—and believe me that 
 the man placed in the position you place me in will occupy a place 
 in the historic page—let me be judged fairly. If I struggle, let 
 the Irish people struggle too, and then I will not be ashamed or look 
 with fear to the place that my name will occupy.*’ 
 
 Here positively we have Mr. Parnell’s views powerfully expressed ; 
 and we only can say now it was a pity that Mr. Butt, starting with 
 the same ideas, should have veered so wide apart from his young 
 follower in the conclusions he ultimately reached. As for Mr. Butt’s 
 appeal for whole-hearted support from the do-nothings of the party, 
 so far as its effect on them was concerned it might as well have] been 
 addressed to the bricks in the walls of the room in which his speech 
 was delivered. His sentiments were cheered to the echo ; neverthe¬ 
 less the majority of the party remained as reluctant as ever to act up 
 to them. 
 
 Under the circumstances so referred to by the leader of the party 
 Mr. Parnell felt himself thoroughly justified in following his own 
 course for the benefit of Irish interests, and especially of the cause 
 of self-government, whether with or without the approval of Mr. 
 Butt. That able and distintinguished man, astute as he was in most 
 affairs, was yet unable to perceive the exact bearing of the new 
 policy. He regarded it as plain and simple obstruction of the busi¬ 
 ness of the House of Commons, and again and again prophesied that 
 it would be put down. But Mr. Parnell had no notion of taking up 
 an attitude which he could not maintain ; and one of the cardinal 
 features of the novel plan of action he had struck out—one too 
 which seems wholly to have escaped Mr. Butt’s notice—was to 
 endeavour to benefit the British democracy while offering steady 
 opposition to a British aristocratic Government. By this simple 
 means he at once served the broad interests of humanity, incapa¬ 
 citated the London [Parliament for speedy work, and provided an 
 excellent and sure-acting buffer which saved himself from being 
 crushed. 
 
 On this principle he stood while opposing the English Prisons Bill, 
 to which embryo piece of legislation he had given long and close 
 study. All his amendments—and he proposed a great many indeed 
 —were directed towards liberalising the measure. He wanted to 
 secure even criminals from brutal treatment inside the prison walls, 
 and froift being compelled by the cruelty of jailors to suffer punish¬ 
 ments beyond those to which they had been condemned ; he wanted 
 adequate supervision and inspection of prisons ; he wanted, above 
 all, to save political prisoners from the degradations properly meted 
 out in jail to the murderous burglar, the callous baby-farmer, or the 
 beast convicted of unspeakable crimes. Amendment after amend¬ 
 ment was proposed by him only to be lost; and still on succeeding 
 clauses of the bill he calmly brought up fresh amendments having 
 in view the same or similar objects. The bill, in consequence, made 
 little or no headway in committee; and the wrath of the hitherto 
 omnipotent majority steadily accumulated against the daring offender 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 49 
 
 who by his audacious pertinacity was single-handed proving himself 
 a match for hundreds. 
 
 And just now Mr. Parnell developed a singular zeal in the inte¬ 
 rests of the soldiers of Great Britain, and devoted himself with 
 heroic constancy to the improvement of their lot by moving amend¬ 
 ments to the Mutiny Bill—a measure which had been therefore 
 passed annually as a mere matter of form, and any provision of 
 which the ordinary British member would have deemed it sacrilege 
 to touch. 
 
 The gathering waters of rage in the end burst through the dam, 
 and there came “a scene in the House.” It wa3 immediately after 
 the Easter recess; the hour was advanced in the morning ; Mr. 
 Parnell had been at constant and harassing work for some ten hours ; 
 he wished to propose some new amendments on a clause about to be 
 discussed, and, as he had not the amendments prepared, and was 
 besides completely worn out, he made the quite reasonable sug* 
 gestion that the committee should postpone its further labours to 
 another date. 
 
 Let the reader picture to himself the scene which followed. The 
 London House of Commons is eighty feet long by fifty wide, and is 
 forty feet in height. The entrance door is at the foot of this spacious 
 apartment; and, facing the door, at the head of the room, is the 
 Speaker’s chair. A T-shaped table stands in front of the Speaker’s 
 chair. Either side of the table rise up seats, tier on tier, the higher 
 each about twelve inches above the one next below, and all lyiug 
 lengthwise down the room. Scattered over those seats are some hun¬ 
 dred members of Parliament, most of them in the regulation “full 
 dress” of London—white tie, much shirt-front, small black waist¬ 
 coat, black trousers, and black swallow-tail coat. Many of these 
 gentlemen have just come to the House from dinner-parties at 
 which wine has been flowing pretty freely ; others have looked in on 
 their way home from balls where copious libations of champagne 
 had been offered up to pleasure. These are boisterous. On the 
 front bench to the right of the Speaker’s chair are half a dozen 
 members of the Government, asleep or pretending to be asleep. In 
 the chair sits the chairman of committees, flushed and angry-looking 
 —his face suggestive of a wish to have some one laid under a Nasmyth 
 steam-hammer in full blast. Far down the room, to the left of the 
 chair, stands erect a slim young man, calm, composed, gentlemanly, 
 undemonstrative either in voice or gesture, and he is striving to 
 address the House. The convivial gentlemen converse quite loudly 
 with each other, and in concert, as if of set purpose ; and the voice 
 of the speaker is smothered in the noise. The chairman does not 
 interfere. The young man persists, and raises his voice above the 
 din, which suddenly grows twice as great as before. The speaker’s 
 pale face waxes paler still, and there is an ominously bright sparkle 
 in his brown eye3; further than this there i3 no sign that he is 
 moved by the vulgar rudeness which assails him. He pauses, 
 standing still erect. There comes a lull in the designed confusion ; 
 
50 C. S. PARXELL, M.P, 
 
 and into that lull he interjects a sharp, clear, terse sentence, not at 
 all conveying compliments to the House, Then the hilarious young 
 gentlemen of from thirty-four to forty who have been out dancing 
 or dining and wining begin to display the variety of their accom¬ 
 plishments. Three or four, as if to emphasise that frugality of 
 nature’s gifts to them which among their acquaintances causes them 
 to be set down as “asses,” begin to bray. Others mimic the cries 
 of barnyard fowl with more or less success. Some whistle as if 
 they were lunatics who fancied themselves railway ^locomotives 
 giving out a warning ; some ironically shriek “ yaw-yaw”—which 
 is English for “hear, hear” ; others scream “ ’vide, ’vide’’—English 
 for * { divide, divide” ; and one, a sprig of nobility, very accurately 
 reproduces the sounds made by a man whose stomach revolts against 
 the inordinate quantity of strong liquor with which he has overladen 
 it. 
 
 Calmly, in spite of all, the speaker goes on whenever a moment’s 
 lull gives him the chance. He talks as argumentatively as though 
 he were addressing a roomful of philosophers, and he does not re¬ 
 sume his seat until he has finished the reasons which impel him to 
 move “ that the chairman do report progress”—one of the forms for 
 bringing to an end a sitting of the House in committee. 
 
 And now occurs a regrettable incident. Mr. Butt has been 
 taking his ease outside in one of the lobbies. Mr. Butt is genial to 
 a fault ; he is impressionable too ; he is not fond of fighting at all; 
 he has a cordial dislike of wounding British susceptibilities ; and, to 
 crown all, in the words which Major O’Gorman once applied to 
 him during hi3 lifetime at a public meeting, “he is too soft with 
 those English—he often says ‘ hear, hear,’ when he should say * no, 
 no.’” Some one rushes out of the House to seek Mr. Butt, finds 
 him, gives him a garbled account of what had been taking place 
 inside, and induces him to come in and use his influence in put¬ 
 ting down the terrible young man who not only stops the wheels of 
 the Parliamentary machine, and threatens to smash it up altogether, 
 but is also “doing incalculable damage to the Home Rule cause.” 
 How tender the regard of Englishmen just then for “the Home n 
 R ule cause” ! 
 
 Mr. Butt, without thinking, and without taking the trouble to 
 make sure that his informant had not deceived him, launches out 
 into a denunciation of Mr. Parnell which earns for the denouncer 
 the hearty cheers of the assembly, the aforesaid convivial young 
 men verging on middle age included. There is great smiling in the 
 British ranks at this episode, and much mutual congratulation. \ 
 Surely Mr. Parnell will hearken to the voice of his leader ; surely be 
 is now effectually muzzled and fettered ; surely they cm get through 
 their Mutiny Bill that night, and so put it beyond the power of any 
 Irish member thereafter to busy himself in a matter so purely and 
 entirely English. 
 
 These were “the pleasing hopes, the fond desires,” in which 
 British members indulged as Mr. Butt poured out with rapid 
 
C. S. PAKNELL, M.P. 
 
 51 
 
 tongue his heated utterances ; and it does not Beem to have occurred 
 to any one of those members that an Irish member’s right to take an 
 active part in the settlement of purely English affairs has been, 
 since the Union, quite as good as an English member’s to take an 
 active part in purely Irish affairs ; though the latter occurs fre¬ 
 quently every session. 
 
 But alas for those delightful speculations ! Mr. Parnell, though 
 grieved at the tone taken up by Mr. Butt, was not to be turned aside 
 from his purpose. As it is the privilege of any member to move 
 alternately the motions, " That the chairman do report progress,” 
 and “ That the chairman do leave the chair,” just so long as he 
 chooses, it came to pass, the moment it was found that Mr. Parnell 
 had really made up his mind to have the further consideration of 
 the Bill postponed, that the House and the Government gave way, 
 seeing plainly that nothing whatever was to be gained by a continu¬ 
 ance of the fight, and that nothing could result from it but increased 
 disorder and confusion. They had had some experience of Mr. 
 Parnell by that time, and they had already learned that when he 
 entered deliberately on any course he would “stick to it.” The 
 Bill was therefore held over to another date. 
 
 The wear and tear of struggling almost singlehanded against hun¬ 
 dreds, as well as of his close and constant attendance in the House 
 the whole time it remained sitting, began even so early in the ses¬ 
 sion to tell on Mr. Parnell’s health. Instead of prescribing for 
 himself a period of rest, he sent over to Ireland for a couple of hi3 
 hunters, on which he could every day|take a spin in the fresh rural 
 air, and so brace himself up physically for the hard work still before 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Butt had thought proper privately to lecture Messrs. 
 Parnell and Biggar on what he thought the folly of their course. 
 He was annoyed with the majority of his followers for doing nothing ; 
 but he was still more annoyed with a small minority for doing what 
 he considered too much. The members for Meath and Cavan, how¬ 
 ever, while responding courteously, declined to have their hands 
 tied by their leader on matters outside his jurisdiction. The leader 
 appealed to the party ; and as the earnestness and activity of Messrs. 
 Parnell and Biggar was in itself an incessant and stinging reproach 
 to the majority for their total want of either one quality or the 
 other, the majority naturally took sides with Mr, Butt, with the 
 utmost alacrity, on the point in dispute. 
 
 This, of course, did not make more smooth the pathway of the 
 two incriminated members, more especially as it gave the good-for- 
 nothings the very excuse they wanted for staying away from any 
 divisions Mr. Parnell or Mr. Biggar might wish to take. Yet, on the 
 other hand, it appears to have shamed the party into fits of action 
 now and again ; as when, on the 1st of May, by offering a pro¬ 
 longed resistance in the Parnell manner they compelled the Govern¬ 
 ment to raise the number of the committee on cattle plague and 
 importation of live stock from twenty-three to twenty-seven, for the 
 
 * 
 
“ 
 
 52 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 purpose of adding to it four men of the Irish party; and likewise 
 forced them to put on the roll of the committee a couple of names 
 which had been at first rejected. Still further, throughout the 
 greater part of the session the members for Meath and Cavan re¬ 
 ceived most valuable aid at critical moments from some half dozen 
 of their colleagues, including Major O’Gorman, Major Nolan, Mr. 
 A. M. Sullivan, Mr. O'Connor Power, and Mr. G. H. Kirk. 
 
 Mr. Butt about April wrote a lengthy letter to Mr. Biggar, and v 
 subsequently another long one to Mr. Parnell, on the subject of their 
 new patent breechloading weapon for attacking the British House 
 of Commons. As these letters did not produce the effect for which 
 they were ostensibly intended, he most unwisely hastened to publish 
 them. There can be no doubt that they were originally written with 
 a view to eventual publication. They were couched in a style meant 
 rather for the Irish people at large than for the two gentlemen ad¬ 
 dressed. Mr. Parnell replied in an extremely able and convincing 
 letter, intended just as plainly for Mr. Butt’s eyes only. Before, 
 however, it was quite finished, Mr, Parnell was amazed to see both 
 the communication he had himself received and that which had been 
 forwarded to Mr. Biggar appearing in the columns of the Irish press. 
 Thi3 circumstance of course left Mr. Parnell no option but to publish 
 his reply. At that time it had been the fashion with many people 
 who conceived themselves very owls for wisdom to speak of Mr. 
 Parnell as a well meaning young man, but very headstrong and im¬ 
 prudent. We reprint here the conclusion of this letter, from which 
 readers may be able to judge for themselves whether the balance of 
 prudence in this controversy lay on the side of Mr. Butt or of Mr. 
 Parnell. The passage is a3 follows :— 
 
 “P.S.—Since writing much of the above I find that your action 
 in publishing your letter to Mr. Biggar, and subsequently that to 
 myself, will necessitate the publication of this my reply. I regard 
 your conduct in thus appealing to the public upon a matter which 
 you have never even yet brought under the consideration of the 
 Parliamentary party as most precipitate and deplorable, and well 
 calculated to lead to serious dissension ; but as you have taken the 
 step I must disclaim for myself the responsibility of any damage 
 which the knowledge of the serious charges contained in my letter 
 may do to the Home Buie party in the minds of the public. 
 
 C. S. P, 
 
 Throughout all this controversy and others that followed between 
 the parties, not one uncourteous word fell from Mr. Parnell’s lips 
 or pen in respect to Isaac Butt. He conducted his arguments with 
 unimpeachable gentlemanliness throughout; and even when the great 
 old man, then fast declining towards the grave, had sunk in the 
 popular estimation, Mr. Parnell never wrote or spoke of him a 
 single syllable that could rankle in his heart or cause him a personal 
 pang. The consequence was that till the last, however much he 
 disapproved of his policy, Isaac Butt cherished a sincere respect 
 for Mr. Parnell. 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 53 
 
 As was to be expected, Mr. Butt’s attacks on Messrs. Parnell and 
 Biggar, and their defences, when given to the public, created no 
 little sensation, not only in Ireland, but in Great Britain also. The 
 press of the latter country patted the leader of the Home Rule party 
 on the back, and found out numerous good qualities in him which 
 it had not before discovered. There was joy in the British camp ; 
 for was not the old delightful game of Irish dissension being played 
 as charmingly as ever ? Mr. Butt was a very distinguished man ; he 
 had experience ; he knew what “ the tone of the House” was ; he re¬ 
 spected its traditions ; his great ability enabled him to see how 
 damaging even to Irish interests was the course on which Parnell 
 and his friends, men without brains or experience, had entered; 
 though unfortunately he had lent himself to a scheme which threat¬ 
 ened “the integrity of the empire,” he was yet at heart a constitu¬ 
 tionalist. Such was the style of comment bestowed on him by his 
 new patrons, the London editors ; and as, in truth, he really believed 
 the most of it, his anxiety to shackle the|active men was not thereby 
 lessened. 
 
 In Ireland, however, a widely different kind of comment began to 
 prevail. Though in the pro-British and the trimming journals abuse 
 or deprecation of “obstruction” was a staple topic, all the organs of 
 national opinion C which had earned a character for honesty in the 
 past encouraged Mr. Parnell and his auxiliaries to persevere. Elderly 
 people, wealthy people, “loyal” people, and people by nature timid, 
 in addition to the old women of both sexes, alarmed by Mr. Butt’s 
 denunciations of the new policy as “ revolutionary,” shrieked out 
 against it; but the mass of the nation, who in all probability saw 
 nothing in it then but a means of punishing the British Parliament 
 for its confirmed hostility to Irish rights, promptly ranged themselves 
 on the side of Parnell and Biggar. In this state of affairs Mr. Butt, 
 having failed to achieve the purpose intended by the publication 
 of his letters to those gentlemen, convened for the 16th of June a 
 meeting of the Irish Parliamentary party to take the “ obstruction” 
 question into consideration. 
 
 Meanwhile, undeterred by the storms gathering around them from 
 opposite quarters, the few adherents of this “ revolutionary” policy 
 went steadily on in their course. As at a bull-baiting the remorse¬ 
 less dog seizes his enormous antagonist by the lip, pinning his head 
 to the ground, and with iron jaws holds him immovable and help¬ 
 less, so they held the House of Commons in an inexorable gripe, 
 overmastering, persistent, unrelaxing. The House might bellow as 
 much as it liked, and bellow outrageously it did pretty often, but 
 that was nearly the utmost it could do. Now Mr. Parnell worried 
 it on the question of the release of the political prisoners; now on the 
 corrupting employment of secret service money in Ireland ; now on 
 the Irish Judicature Bill; now on the Irish County Courts Bill; now 
 on the army estimates ; and so on. Whatever the measure the Go¬ 
 vernment might bring on, a watchful wide-awake Irish half dozen 
 were present to see that it received proper discussion. And here it 
 
54 
 
 C. S, PJLS2TSLL, !L*t. 
 
 may be remarked that one of the rare occasions on which Mr. Parnell 
 was called so order occurred in a contest with the House on the 1st 
 cf May, 1577, over the nomination of Mr. Big,oar to a place on the 
 cattle-plague inquiry committee. Some paltry knob of an Englishman 
 had the audacity to sneer at Mr, Bigga.r for being.in trade. At this 
 insnl: to hie fast friend and consistent colleague the hidden fire of Mr. 
 Parnell's nature named forth. That mode of personal attack is essen¬ 
 tially an offensively vulgar one ; while Cnarles Stewart Parnell, from 
 the crown of hie head to the sole of Lis foot, is a gentleman every 
 inch. In denouncing the British snob the warmth o: his feelings 
 caused him to forget his Customary prudence, and he twice fell foul 
 o: the “roles o: the House, 1 Very few gentlemen of any country 
 would think anything the worse cf him for this rare exhibition of 
 loss of perfect self-control Most Irishmen, we fancy, would em¬ 
 phatically pronounce the throwing of prudence to the winds under 
 such circumstances to be “ a good fault. - ' 
 
 Once again, a little later on, he wa3 hurried into excitement 
 during a debate on the Irish political prisoners. Heme Secretary 
 Cross had denied that there were any then in durance. The Fenian 
 soldiers still held he described as military prisoners; O'Meara Con¬ 
 don and Meledy as murderers ; and Mr. Michael Davit: as an or¬ 
 dinary convict. Such a classic cation of men whose real crime : n 
 British eyes was notoriously their connection with an organisation 
 which aimed a: the overthrow of British rule in Ireland stung Mr, 
 Parnell to the cuick ; therefore he rose to reply to Mr, Cross, and to 
 expo se his misrepresentations. Although a newspaper correspondent 
 described him on that occasion as speaking “ with the placidity and 
 gentleness o: demeanour, and in the cultivated accents, which are 
 the marvel of strangers who are shewn for the first time the terrible 
 twin obstructive," the outward calm but Lid a volcanic working 
 beneath., and alter a few sharp sentences, brimming over with indig¬ 
 nation, yet couched in language cf the kind considered not inadmis¬ 
 sible in that temple of manners, the London House of Commons, he 
 was compelled by the strength of his emotions to bring his remarks 
 to a close with the statement that he could not trust himself to speak 
 further. And the stolid British majority, who had been accustomed 
 to think him in nature as not unlike one of themselves, incapable of 
 warm sympathies or generous reelings, received that statement with 
 derisive shouts of “'Chi' The broader purpose of working out his 
 tactics skilfully—the only wav in whi:h they could be worked—made 
 him check himself before he had infringed his privileges as a member 
 cf Parliament; and in a little wide after, on the same night, he was 
 able to assail, with the most absolute self-control, out with a snarp- 
 ness which was certainly not blunted by Secretary Cress’s earner ob¬ 
 servations on Irish political prisoners, the whole system o: spies and 
 “iniermers" in Ireland, in a debate which he raised on the estimates 
 
 aw J 
 
 ■'.r •• secret service money. 
 
 The 16th cf -Inns came : and oh ! what a nocking to the London 
 chambers of the Irish party there was of its members, I: had got 
 
C, S, PABSELL, 1LP. 
 
 oo 
 
 bruited among them that Parnell and Biggar aDd the other trouble¬ 
 some persons who wanted activity and earnestness and courage in 
 Irish members of Parliament were now at last to be definitely 
 squelched. Men whom the most urgent requisition of their leader 
 could not bring thither when it wa3 only a question of taking coun¬ 
 sel how best to forward some Irish interest in Parliament, were 
 prompt in attendance when the object in view wa3 the highly impor¬ 
 tant one of annihilating such exhibitions of zeal in the country’s ser¬ 
 vice as were a standing reproach to those members who did not care 
 one jot about the country or it3 interests so long as confiding con¬ 
 stituencies could be found to elect political hypocrites to represent 
 them. The do-nothings turned up in alarming force at the meting, 
 now at last resolved to “do something”—not for Ireland ; oh ! no ! 
 but for the ridding their own precious selves of a perpetual annoy¬ 
 ance. The contrast between activity'Mid indolence, between earnest- 
 ufsss and indifference, between steady application to Parliamentary 
 duty and almost equally steady neglect of it—this was setting up a 
 totally new example, establishing an alarming precedent, instilling 
 into the minds of Irish electors the pernicious notion that they ought 
 to expect real service from their representatives ; and of course the 
 sooner such a monstrous conception of political duty was’smothered 
 the better. To those London chambers of the Irish party also 
 crowded the old Whigs who had masqueraded as Home Rulers at 
 the general election of 1874, and who, so long as a Tory Government 
 was in office, might be depended on to appear pretty constantly in op¬ 
 position to it—whether as followers of Isaac Butt or of the Marquis 
 of Harrington mattered but little for the time. To the same cham¬ 
 ber came also the more limited number of Tories who had donned 
 the Home Rule cloak to secure election, but who were equally anxious 
 with the two other classes to put down the men that were lunatic or 
 idiotic enough to keep Ireland—Ireland only—in view in the British 
 Parliament. 
 
 Yet it is somewhat consoling to remember that a very considerable 
 number of the Irish Parliamentary party who were not able conscien¬ 
 tiously to accept tie new policy, or did not quite understand all its 
 bearings, made it their business to attend this meeting of the loth 
 of June, 1S77, to interpose themselves between the “too active” 
 minority and the too idle majority. Their well meant services, how¬ 
 ever, were not needed at the time. Isaac Butt was no fool. He 
 found on this occasion forty cf his nominal followers surrounding 
 him—a number by far greater than he could ordinarily gather around 
 him in what he deemed crises of the very first importance in Irish 
 affairs. He knew too how reedlike wa3 the support afforded him by 
 many of those who had answered with such unusual alacrity his 
 present summons. And he knew that the one complaint he had to 
 make against the Parnell and Biggar handinl was what he unfortu¬ 
 nately considered too much zeaL Consequently, when they explained 
 the motives which had moved them in the Parliamentary action to 
 which he took exception, and corrected the false impression of it 
 
 ■4 
 
56 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 which he had conceived, there was an end for the moment of all con¬ 
 troversy. No resolution condemnatory of them was passed ; but in¬ 
 stead was one inculcating the need of more frequent meetings of the 
 party, so a3 to secure more unity and greater activity in its pro¬ 
 ceedings. Vain hopes ! delusive dreams ! Wild horses, untamed 
 elephants, could not have dragged back again to those chambers 
 wherein that resolution was unanimously voted several of those who 
 assented to it that day. They had gone there to assist in putting 
 down inconvenient activity ; in the turn that affairs took they were 
 left only the alternative of exposing their hypocrisy or agreeing to the 
 resolution ; they chose the latter course, but apparently with a men¬ 
 tal reservation which gave them liberty to exempt themselves from 
 the scope of the resolution. At all events, the rooms of the party 
 were but seldom afterwards enlightened with their presence. 
 
 The wonderful effect of this famous meeting in restraining those 
 whom it was called together to handcuff will presently be seen. A 
 few days after it was held, however, an event happened which con¬ 
 tributed to give some extraordinary developments to the new Irish 
 policy in the British Parliament. This was the election of Mr. Frank 
 Hugh O’Donnell as member for Dungarvan on the 23rd of June, 1877. 
 
 Mr. O’Donnell was a graduate of the Queen’s College, Galway, and 
 a man of varied accomplishments and much ability, who had gravi¬ 
 tated towards the London press. For years he had waged relentless 
 war against the mixed system of education, especially as illustrated 
 in the Queen’s Colleges ; and year after year he had undeviatingly 
 attended convocation of the Queen’s University to assail, generally 
 single-handed, in the teeth of an adverse majority, its fundamental 
 principle. As he never bad more than one supporter on these occa¬ 
 sions, and usually had not even one ; and as the other members of 
 convocation, from the occupant of the chair to the youngest graduate, 
 were zealous adherents of the ei mixed system,” it is easy to see what 
 hardihood he must have had to stand up for the right in a gathering 
 so completely adverse, and to fancy what hootings, jeerings, clamour 
 of all kinds—to say nothing of perpetual calls to order by the chair¬ 
 man—he had to endure. 
 
 One who had received such rough but suitable training was emi¬ 
 nently a man for the new Parliamentary policy ; and as if by natural 
 instinct Mr. O’Donnell took to it. He became at once, and con¬ 
 tinued to be, one of the most efficient of Mr. Parnell’s aids. There- 
 was no fear whatever that the wildest tumult of the London Com¬ 
 mons would put him down. As the stormy petrel is at home when 
 elemental fury is at its highest, so was Mr. O’Donnell amid the hur¬ 
 ricane rage of a bitterly hostile assembly. 
 
 He had formally taken his seat but a few days when he gave his 
 fellow-Commoners a taste of his quality. The date was the night of 
 the 2nd July, or rather the morning of the 3rd. The hour was one 
 o’clock. The occasion was the wish of the few watchful, industrious 
 Irish members present to protest against the denial to Ireland of 
 volunteer corps. The opportunity afforded was the vote for the 
 British volunteers in the army estimates. 
 
C. S. PARS ELL, M.P. 
 
 57 
 
 At one o’clock in the morning, Captain Nolan (who has since 
 attained the rank of Major), whose courage and fidelity are worthy 
 of all honour, opened the ball by moving “ that the chairman do re¬ 
 port progress.” His object was to secure the bringing on of the vote 
 for the British volunteers at an hour when a discussion on the Irish 
 side of the question could be raised with effect; it being notorious 
 that in the small hours of the morning the British Commons are 
 utterly impatient of and adverse to discussion, wanting to have done 
 with business of any ikind, however important, and to go home to 
 bed ; and it being almost equally notorious that Government business 
 which is likely to evoke discussion, comes on, by some singular 
 chance, at those same small hours. 
 
 And here it may be remarked that the essence of what is now 
 commonly called the Parnell policy consists in having, on every occa¬ 
 sion’when it is brought in play, a distinct, appreciable, and reason¬ 
 able purpose. Its strength lies in the fact that, while every form of 
 Parliament is to be availed of, nothing is to be done blindly, or with¬ 
 out an object readily comprehensible by at least the leaders of the 
 House. It is elastic also as well as strong, for it can be employed 
 on every variety of topic that can come before the Commons at 
 Westminster. Also—since the Union compels the return of Irish 
 members to the British Parliameut—so long as the Union lasts (and 
 that is to say, so long as Irish members are sent to that Parliament), 
 there is no possible way of checking the employment of that policy, 
 even a little, except by restricting the liberties of British members 
 themselves. For the Act of Union puts Irish members on precisely 
 the same footing as those of Great Britain; and any distinction 
 made between them would tear up the last shred of that Act. Even 
 the alternative of ejecting from the House obnoxious individual Irish 
 members, while a precedent full of evil possibilities for the British 
 themselves, would be useless in presence of a determined spirit in 
 the Irish constituencies ; since the seats made vacant could be easily 
 filled—and would certainly be in such circumstances—by men who 
 would very soon be at least as obnoxious. Again, with half a hun¬ 
 dred members working in concert on the principles invented by Mr. 
 Parnell, it would even be impossible to single out individual mem¬ 
 bers for censure or punishment; and therefore a really resolute 
 Irish party might triumphantly exclaim to the most intolerant British 
 majority that ever existed since 1801, “ Now, infidel, I have thee on 
 the hip !” In short, even to cripple st obstruction,” carried out sys¬ 
 tematically and skilfully by only a score of members acting on a 
 common understanding, the majority must cripple themselves also, 
 must part with valuable privileges, materially impair not only the 
 prestige and the freedom of the London Parliament, but its strength 
 as a bulwark of English liberties as well, and surrender portion of 
 its power of resisting the encroachments of tyranny. 
 
 There were over a hundred, British members in the House, the 
 Home Eulers were but seven in all, when Captain Nolan rose to his 
 feet. The British majority resented the intrusion of Irish members 
 
58 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 in their affairs. But the Irish, few as they were, were resolved to 
 win. Captain Nolan having withdrawn his motion, Mr. O’Connor 
 Power took it up. Of course he was beaten on a division. Mr. 
 O’Donnell promptly rose to move “ that the chairman do leave the 
 chair.” A hideous din greeted him as he went on to speak to his 
 motion. Some of the gentlemen of “the first assembly in the 
 world” began those imitations of the speech of the lower animals at 
 which they are such adepts ; others laughed loudly in derision; 
 others, again, indulged in inarticulate shouts ; and others still, as the 
 tremendous uproar went on, exclaimed, “Let us see how much he 
 will stand.” Such terms as “hypocritical,” “shabby,” and such 
 choice flowers of rhetoric as “pigs could obstruct,” were bandied 
 about amid the tumult of the night; and the chairman of commit¬ 
 tees, alarmed at the state of violent disorder to which the House in 
 its anger had reduced itself, interposed sharply several times to 
 restrain the more violent, and even threatened to bring the beastly 
 conduct of one “ noble lord” before the House. The great British 
 Parliament, in fact—the model of representative institutions all 
 over the world—had been turned for the nonce into a Bedlam. 
 
 Those who were anxious to know how much Mr. O’Donnell “ could 
 stand” soon discovered that he could stand a great deal indeed. 
 When he had been on his legs about half an hour, « and a partial 
 lull in the storm had been obtained through the chairman’s exertions, 
 he paralysed his British audience by coolly observing that as they 
 had not been able to hear his remarks it would be necessary to make 
 them over again. And he was as good as his word. He began his 
 speech anew, and unconcernedly went over the whole ground he 
 had before traversed; and when at a quarter past two he resumed 
 his seat he had infused into the breasts of his would-be tormentors 
 a feeling ludicrously akin to positive terror. 
 
 The House had been gradually receiving accessions during these 
 proceedings until the majority reached about one hundred and fifty. 
 The Irish still fought on. Some British members, unwilling to give 
 way to the audacious Hiberian handful, yet anxious to go home, had 
 the House “counted,” but when forty members were found to be 
 present the sitting went on. Major O’Gorman followed Mr. O’Don¬ 
 nell with a motion “ that the chairman report progress when he was 
 beaten Mr. O’Connor Power moved “that the chairman leave the 
 chairwhen he was beaten Mr. Richard Power moved that progress 
 be reported ; when he was beaten Mr. Parnell moved the chairman 
 out of the chair ; when he was beaten Mr. O’Connor Power moved to 
 report progress. Thus the British majority were kept marching and 
 countermarching in and out of the division lobby pretty actively for 
 an hour. 
 
 About this time, three o’clock having been reached, the chairman 
 felt that unsupported nature could not sustain itself in such.distres¬ 
 sing circumstances, so he had refreshments brought to him into the 
 House, and consumed them with what relish he could at the table in 
 front of the chair. The Speaker, whose office compelled him to wait 
 
for the formal adjournment cf the sitting, was asleep in another 
 chamber. Much talk went on, much bandying of more or less polite 
 abuse, much crimination and recrimination ; and in the meantime 
 the short Summer night had slipped away, the morning sun was 
 streaming in through the windows, and at four o’clock the gas was 
 turned off. During the talk two other efforts to count out the House 
 had been made without effect. The marching and countermarching 
 began again. Mr. Parnell moved to report progress ; Mr, O’Donnell 
 that the chairman leave the chair* These were followed in quick 
 succession by corresponding motions from Mr. O’Connor Power, 
 Major O’Gorman, and Mr. Richard Power; when another effort to 
 count out the House was made ; but still there were found over forty 
 brave Britons who would perish on the spot rather than surrender. 
 
 The divisions had been going on in a grim, business-like way for an 
 hour, when Mr. Parnell remarked that Irish questions were treated 
 there in a half-contemptuous way, and that by determined action 
 they would force on the House the duty of treating them properly. 
 Whereupon an English member, rejoicing in the name of Blake, 
 rather irrelevantly retorted that Mr. Parnell had spoken disrespect¬ 
 fully of Mr. Speaker ; to which charge Mr. Parnell, in calm accents, 
 gave a “ distinct denial” and “the flattest contradiction.” A hurri¬ 
 cane of uproar and confusion supervened ; and when the chairman 
 had calmed it down somewhat the walking in and out of the lobbies 
 recommenced. Mr. Richard Power and Mr. Parnell moved the usual 
 motions. Another futile effort was made for a count-out; then the 
 division on Mr. Parnell’s motion was taken, and announced at five 
 minutes to seven. Mr. O’Connor Power at once moved that progress 
 be reported. Some talk ensued, in the course of which Sir John 
 Lubbock complained that only five Irish members pursued this un¬ 
 precedented course ; whereupon Mr. Parnell enlivened matters by 
 playfully reminding him that there is luck in odd numbers ; and Mr. 
 Whalley—kindly old soul that he was, even if sometimes wrong¬ 
 headed—who had manfully stood by the Irishmen all the livelong 
 night, threw in a scrap of the comic element by censuring Ministers 
 for having kept them there all night “ at the risk of their lives.” 
 
 The House was again counted, Only thirty-six were found pre¬ 
 sent ; so the Speaker was roused from his slumbers and came into the 
 Commons chamber. Having again counted the House, and found 
 only thirty present, he declared the sitting adjourned. 
 
 It is now twelve minutes past seven. The warm glare of the July 
 morning fills the large apartment; and there, “like eagles in the 
 sun, the Irish stand,” cheering loudly—“the field is fought and 
 won.” They have gained their point. By sheer resolution and en¬ 
 durance they have beaten the domineering British majority. 
 
 As may be supposed, the all-night contest of the 3rd July, and 
 the Irish victory in which it resulted, roused to a white heat of fury 
 the indignant blood of every true Briton. “If this kind of thing is 
 to go on,” was the universal cry from Land’s End to John-o’-Groats, 
 “ what is to become of the most venerated of our institutions ? Par- 
 
Gi) C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 liament will be brought into permanent contempt ; its prestige is 
 already fearfully lowered ; its morale has even now received alarming 
 shocks from which it must take time to recover ; and where will it 
 all end if ‘ obstruction 1 be persisted in ? Why, the Irish will be vir¬ 
 tual dictators of the House. They will destroy it altogether, or 
 compel it to let go its grasp on their country.” 
 
 British editors, in especial, saw all this quite clearly, and for 
 weeks did not tire of ringing the changes on it. Not only in the 
 London but in the provincial press rabid leaders against “the ob¬ 
 structives” were everyday occurrences. “ Obstruction” should be 
 put down with a high hand, it should be stamped out, &c., &c. 
 This was the burden of their monotonous scJng. But how? The 
 question was a greater puzzle than the riddle of the Sphinx in the 
 antique day3. All the writers sagely and solemnly asseverated that 
 “something should be done;” but not one of them could discover 
 what that something could possibly be. The incriminated members 
 had simply exercised the privileges of their position. It was patent 
 that to punish them for so doing would not only wear an ugly look 
 in foreign eyes, but would establish a bad precedent which might 
 afterwards be employed to the detriment of British liberties. There 
 could be no possibility of hiding from the nations abroad aught in 
 connection with scenes which had attracted the gaze of the civilised 
 world; nor does history offer any guarantee that there may not soon 
 arise a designing British Minister of Imperial proclivities, misleading 
 genius, and mastery of base arts, who, backed by a blind majority, 
 would not scruple to use any weapon he found ready to his grasp to 
 crush a handful struggling in the House of Commons to preserve the 
 rights so hardly won for themselves by the British people. There¬ 
 fore the efforts made to crack the exceedingly hard nut of “ obstruc¬ 
 tion” got no farther in the press than that “ something should be 
 done.” 
 
 But if the editors were furious, what term can describe the feel¬ 
 ings surging in the breasts of the mass of members of Parliament ? 
 If howling and clamour, and all the ways of a cowardly mob, short 
 of actual personal violence, could vanquish the Irish enemy, there 
 would have been a speedy end to the trouble. Those rude weapons, 
 however, had been tried and been found of no avail. Nevertheless 
 it was clear that “ something should be done ;” so the active brain 
 of one Mr. Puleston—who strangely blends in himself British mem¬ 
 bership, Yankee birth and connections, and violent Tory leanings— 
 was set to work. 
 
 On the 4th of July he came down to the House with what he thought 
 was an eighty-ton gun, warranted to blow up “the obstructives” at a 
 single discharge, and all his own invention too. Its charmingly sim¬ 
 ple principle was to entrust to a majority of the House of Commons 
 the power of crushing a minority at will. But this monster piece of 
 ordnance, while no doubt very effective for the purpose Mr. Puleston 
 had in mind, was unfortunately too sweeping in its discharge, and 
 could not be counted on to avoid blowing up others than mere Irish 
 
c. 
 
 S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 members. The House very soon saw that this was the case ; and 
 the consequence was that Mr. Puleston’s eighty-ton gun was rejected 
 amid general laughter. 
 
 The English, Tory of the name of Blake—perhaps smarting under 
 that “ flattest contradiction” which he had received from Mr. Parnell 
 on the morning of the 3rd—returned to the charge on the 4th, burn- 
 inglfor the opportunity of bringing the member for Meath to book 
 about his alleged disrespectful language concerning the Speaker of 
 the House. Being on that occasion foiled he made another essay on 
 the 5th. The forms of the House stood in his way ; but Mr. Parnell 
 was quite anxious to accommodate Mr. Blake; and, rising in his 
 place, blandly observed that if the House wished for explanation on 
 the matter, “he did not in any way wish to stand in the way of 
 the House getting that explanation.” The Speaker himself closed 
 the incident for the time ; but on the 6th Mr. Parnell made an 
 early opportunity for giving his explanation, and so disposed of Mr. 
 Blake and his motion. 
 
 The same night, Mr. Biggar and he, as composed as if nothing 
 had ever happened out of the usual course, and as if they had not 
 been besides the theme of numberless hostile leading articles in the 
 papers for several mornings, quite calmly and deliberately opposed 
 two English bills, taking several divisions on motions to stop their 
 progress in committee, and in the end were again victorious. Fur¬ 
 ther, some English ‘ ‘ gentleman” having spoken of Mr. Biggar as a 
 “blackguard” during the struggle, Mr. Parnell had him at once 
 before the Speaker, and compelled him to withdraw and apologise 
 for using the offensive epithet. 
 
 About this period the Government was very anxious to push on 
 two Irish measures of its own—the Judicature Bill and the County 
 Courts Bill—many of the provisions of both of which had earned the 
 condemnation of the Irish Parliamentary party, or, to speak more 
 correctly, of such of them as took the trouble to attend even mode¬ 
 rately to their public duties. Whenever any of the party were in¬ 
 clined for work, Mr. Parnell worked with them heartily. In con¬ 
 junction with them he took an active part in the issues raised on 
 the Judicature Bill, besides dragging up the Phoenix Park outrage 
 on the estimates for the metropolitan police); making efforts to im¬ 
 prove the constitution of the Local Government Board ; and again 
 drawing attention to the Phoenix Park outrage on the constabulary 
 estimates. He succeeded in procuring the adoption of several of his 
 amendments, as well as in extracting from the Government a definite 
 promise that they would provide for independent inspection of all con¬ 
 vict prisons, so that their unhappy inmates should not be left wholly 
 to the tender mercies of hardened officials. Good work for a single 
 man, this will no doubt be thought; yet not a tithe of what it 
 would have been but for the restraining presence of Mr. Butt, who 
 appealed to Mr. Parnell to give way on the constabulary estimates. 
 In spite of what had passed between the two gentlemen, Mr. Par¬ 
 nell, in deference to Mr, Butt, did give way. Thus a “scene” 
 
 
 __ 
 
62 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 which must have been more violent than any preceding one, was 
 avoided on the 19th July ; for it had been Mr, Parnell’s resolve to 
 have challenged a division on every one of thirty-two estimates, 
 and it is but natural to suppose that the tempers of the mob of un¬ 
 willing pedestrians should have suffered more than ever under an 
 infliction so unprecedented. Mr. Parnell, however, did not leave 
 the House in the least doubt either as to the intentions he had en¬ 
 tertained or the reason which moved him to forego them. He openly 
 stated that “ it was fortunate for the Government that the hon. and 
 learned member for Limerick was present; for, had it not been for 
 his declared wish, he (Mr. Parnell) should have divided the House 
 on every one of the thirty-two votes.” A sense of relief must have 
 been experienced all along the Government benches at this announce¬ 
 ment, and a transitory feeling of gratitude to Mr. Butt no doubt was 
 felt. Against Mr. Parnell, on the other hand, the bitterest anti¬ 
 pathy was excited by his audacious declaration. It was borne in 
 mind too ; and the very next night the frantic hostility of “the first 
 assembly of gentlemen in the world,” as the English are fond of 
 calling their House of Commons, burst’in a tornado of uproar, the 
 equal of which had never been known within the walls of the Com¬ 
 mons chamber. The scene which took place was similar to those we 
 have previously described, only much more disorderly, tumultuous, 
 and disgraceful. 
 
 The scene began by Mr. Biggar moving, near one o’clock in the 
 morning, that progress should be reported. In the course of an 
 animated discussion which ensued,§ Mr. Butt said he did not regard 
 the proceedings initiated by Mr. Biggar as obstruction. Notwith¬ 
 standing this pronouncement of the leader of the Irish party, Mr. 
 Meldon “protested against the course taken by the hon. member for 
 Cavan as obstructive,” &c. Mr. O’Shaughnessy also, the junior mem¬ 
 ber for Limerick city, was rewarded by “loud cheers” for a wanton 
 attack upon his brother Irish members. This brought Mr. Parnell 
 to his feet in reply. Then the full fury of the hurricane burst 
 I forth. The uproar grew deafening. Most of it was inarticulate 
 noises—shouts, hoots, yells, groans, howls—purposely made to try 
 once more to cow him, and at least to prevent him from being heard. 
 Amid the horrid din occasionally could be heard shrieks of “ ’vide, 
 ’vide,” screams of “ sit down,” and the like; while one honourable 
 gentleman, filled with an enlightened zeal for “the tone of the 
 House,” roared out familiarly, “Finish up, Parnell.” The mem¬ 
 ber for Meath, however, was not cowed, did not sit down, and 
 would not “finish up.” Instead, he showed a spice of resentment 
 at the organised clamour to which he was being subjected, and con¬ 
 trived to make himself distinctly heard while uttering some stinging 
 sentences not complimentary to the English national character. 
 But it was hard work to go on. The following paragraph will help 
 the reader to realise the circumstances under which Mr. jParnell 
 spoke that night:— 
 
 “This is a sample (great uproar)—this is a sample—(deafening 
 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 63 
 
 f^proar)—this is a sample of your English fair play—(indescribable 
 confusion). I have often heard of it—(continued uproar)—but I 
 have never seen it”—(prolonged uproar). In the midst of the hideous 
 and disgusting confusion the chairman’s voice is faintly heard, 
 calling on the hon. member for Meath to proceed; to which that 
 hon. member calmly responds that he will if he is allowed. 
 
 1 %**. In the end by persistence Mr. Parnell won. The very means de¬ 
 signed to prevent what was called “ obstructionjof business'’ proved 
 in truth an admirable instrument for preventing the House from 
 doing any business whatever. This fact began to dawn on the Tory 
 leaders when a couple of hours had been spent in wild confusion ; 
 and at length the Chancellor of the Exchequer consented to close 
 the sitting. It was considerably after two o’clock on a Saturday 
 morning when the House adjourned, on the understanding that there 
 should be a sitting for that day, beginning at noon, to push on the 
 Judicature Bill. Saturday, except on very extraordinary occasions, 
 is a holiday with the London Parliament, and members are.always 
 very loath to give it up to business, however important; but in the 
 temper of the time most of the Commons were prepared to make 
 large sacrifices in the hope of squelching the little band of irre¬ 
 pressible Irishmen who presumed to air opinions of their own in that 
 assembly, and who, not content with spurning incorporation either 
 with the Tory party or the Whig, actually dared to refuse assent to 
 the notions entertained, however thoughtlessly or blindly, by an 
 overwhelming British majority. 
 
 For a whole week subsequently every sitting had its “scene.” 
 ■The formal sitting of Saturday, the 21st, came, and with it a mob 
 ■of British members prepared to send through committee at racing 
 speed the Government Judicature Bill. Their good intentions, how¬ 
 ever, were all in vain. At the very outset they were met by a 
 motion to report progress ; and then through long weary hours the 
 wrangle between majority and minority went on. It must be said 
 of this day’s sitting that by no means such violence was displayed 
 as at any of the stormy night scenes ; a circumstance largely due, 
 no doubt, to the fact that it was held before dinner, not after. 
 
 Mr. Butt made a remarkable intervention in the tedious debate. 
 He began by saying that “he rose with feelings of humiliation to 
 take part in this miserable discussion.” Although the gist of his 
 speech was a condemnation of his own too zealous followers, he did 
 not wholly acquit the majority of blame. The portion of his re¬ 
 marks first alluded to evoked “ loud cheers” of course from the 
 British ; but they did not appreciate the second portion at all-rwhich 
 wa3 only what might have been expected. In spite of his influen¬ 
 tial interference the Saturday sitting might almost as well not have 
 been held. But little was done except to expose more clearly than 
 ever the utter helplessness of the British House of Commons in the 
 grasp of a few resolute Irish members. 
 
 The sitting of Monday, the 23rd, came, and the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer rose early in his place to propose, in view of the alarm- 
 
 E 
 
64 C. S. PAKNELL, M.P. 
 
 mglv backward state of “the business of the House,’ 1 that Tuesdays 
 and Wednesdays—the days devoted to the bills of private members 
 —should be given up by them to the Government for the rest of the 
 session. Mr. Parnell, “who rose amid loud and general interrup¬ 
 tion,” opposed the Chancellor’s proposition, and in the course of his 
 speech took occasion to point out that the House was really over- 
 burthened with work; that in its insatiable appetite for meddling 
 with the affairs of other peoples it had gorged itself with business ; 
 and that the only remedy for its complaint was disgorgement. He 
 was informed that he must not discuss the question of Home Pule 
 for Ireland on a motion for facilitating the transaction of “ the busi¬ 
 ness of the House,’’ but he adroitly drove home his point by saying 
 that it would be necessary very soon to take into consideration the 
 breaking up of the legislative functions of the House, and their redis¬ 
 tribution among smaller bodies. That day there was another scene, 
 of course. The majority were in such a’condition of mind that they 
 could not keep their tempers for fifteen minutes at a time ; but as the 
 climax of violence had been reached in the sitting of the 20bh, the 
 tendency now was towards outbursts of wrath less unreasoning. Mr. 
 Parnell’s share in the inevitable “ scene” was a warm interposition in 
 defence of Mr. O’Donnell when that gentleman was grossly attacked 
 by a Tory named Chaplin. 
 
 An incident of a very peculiar kind occurred in the sitting of 
 Tuesday, the 24th July, which, though it caused much laughter in the 
 House at the moment, was yet added to the long list of offences of 
 which in the minds of most of the British members Mr. Parnell had 
 been guilty. The Irish County Courts Bill was under consideration 
 in committee; the hour was one well into Wednesday morning. 
 Major O'Gorman moved that progress should be reported. He 
 named Mr. Biggar for his co-teller. The two gentlemen proceeded 
 to the lobby of the “ ayes” to count those who were of opinion that 
 progress should be reported. They were followed into the lobby by 
 but one solitary member—Mr. Parnell. Messrs. O'Gorman and Big¬ 
 gar had small trouble in fulfilling their duties as tellers. Not so the 
 Tory whips ; for when the numbers were announced there appeared 
 “ayes,” 1 ; “noes,” 147. 
 
 The gallant major was still unsatisfied. No sooner was the result 
 of the division given to the House than he moved “ that the chair¬ 
 man do now leave the chair.” Again he named Mr. Biggar to aid 
 him in counting ; again that gentleman cheerfully assented ; and 
 again Mr. Parnell rose quietly from his seat, and placidly walked 
 alone into the lobby. When the division on this second motion of 
 Major O’Gorman’s was declared, it was found that there was but 
 one “ay” against 128 “noes.” There was something so unique, 
 so sublimely audacious, in these two unprecedented divisions, that 
 for the nonce the British saw only a comic side to the affair, and the 
 announcements of the numbers were received with roars of laughter. 
 But, judging from what happened on the following day, it would 
 seem, after all, to have been bitterly remembered. 
 
- - — —— -- —— - 
 
 I--- 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 The Government had a bill in hands for forming a confederation 
 in their South African colonies. They had also annexed, in a most 
 unjustifiable manner, the republic of the Transvaal. Mr. O’Donnell 
 had put down on the notice paper some forty amendments to the 
 South African Confederation Bill. On Wednesday, the 25th July, 
 as soon as the House was made, he moved to report progress, on 
 the ground that the Government had given no clear and satisfactory 
 explanation of the annexation of the Transvaal. As usual, be was 
 greeted with shouts and interruptions, and appeals to the chair to 
 , declare him out of order. When he had finished, Mr. Parnell rose 
 amid interruptions, which were repeated and continued while he 
 \ spoke. His observations were couched in a warmer style than wa3 
 habitual to him, for the subject was one on which he felt strongly. 
 In the course of his speech he said : 
 
 * “ I feel as an Irishman, coming from a country which has expe* 
 /rienced to the fullest extent the result of English interference in its 
 affairs, and the consequences of English cruelty and tyranny, that I 
 have a special interest in thwarting and preventing the designs of 
 Government upon their unfortunate South African colonists.” 
 
 No sooner were these words spoken than Sir Stafford Northcote 
 /sprang to hi3 feet like a man who saw an opportunity for which he 
 / had been looking. He moved that Mr. Parnell’s words should be 
 I taken down, and the Speaker of the House sent for. These grave 
 ceremonies having been properly performed, the words were duly 
 reported to the Speaker. That functionary ‘ 4 turned eagerly upon 
 Mr. Parnell for an explanation, but Mr. Parnell placidly looked on, 
 and made no sign of rising. After being more than once invited to 
 speak, the hon. member at length rose, and soon all the previous 
 excitement was child’s play to what ensued. In the most determined 
 manner he defended himself, and, using language which greatly irri¬ 
 tated the Ministerialists, he was called upon by the Speaker to desist 
 and withdraw.” 
 
 When a member of the London Parliament is about to be tried by 
 1 his peers, the strange custom of the place is to send him out and try 
 'him behind his back. Mr. Parnell left the House proper, as desired, 
 and proceeded to one of the galleries, where he quietly sat observing 
 f all that subsequently passed below. We take from a London cor¬ 
 respondent the following description of the scene which ensued :— 
 
 “The moment Mr. Parnell had gone, the Chancellor improved 
 the opportunity by giving his version of the occurence, and ended 
 by making a proposal—that Mr. Parnell, having wilfully and persist¬ 
 ently obstructed public business, be suspended from the service of the 
 i House until Friday next. In his hasty and feeble way it wa3 at 
 once seen that the Chancellor had not hit the mark at which he 
 
 I aimed, and a murmur of triumphant satisfaction ran along the Irish 
 ranks—now greatly recruited when it was found that a deliberate on¬ 
 slaught had been made on one of their number. Mr. Sullivan, ever 
 ready to fill the Irish gap, sprang to the rescue of the member for 
 Meath, adopted for himself the very words which had disturbed the 
 
6(5 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 soul of Sir Stafford Northcote, and challenged the Government to 
 take his words down. With exquisite perception of the truth, Mr. 
 Sullivan demonstrated to the House that which was clear enough, 
 indeed, to those who had watched the entire tactics of the Govern¬ 
 ment throughout the day—namely, that the Chancellor wished to 
 punish Mr. Parnell, not for what he had said that day, but for his 
 conduct on previous occasions, and which was not on record. An¬ 
 other heavy blow came upon the Government from a quarter they 
 little suspected. Who was it that dared from the front Opposition 
 bench, directly facing Mr. Hardy, "tro'cast in the teeth of that very 
 Hotspur of obstruction his famous avowal to ‘ thwart’ all the efforts 
 of the late Ministry to carry out its army reforms ? Mr. Knatchbull- 
 Hugessen, ex-Lord of the Treasury, and ex-Under Secretary for the 
 Home Department. It was in vain that the chairman peered through 
 his spectacles, or nervously wrung his hands. It was in vain that, 
 with the hob blood rushing up to his face, Mr. Hardy impatiently 
 shook his head. Mr. Hugessen dilated with great precision on the 
 well-remembered tactics, and not once or twice, but on dozens of 
 occasions, of members of the present Government to obstruct the 
 measures of the late Ministry. The discussion then became general, 
 and it was soon made apparent that the mine sprung by the Govern¬ 
 ment so far had been sprung in vain. v The Chancellor at last was 
 compelled slowly to give ground, for the Speaker announced that Mr. 
 Parnell was entitled to take his place in the House until Friday.” 
 
 So the consideration of the Chancellor's penal proposal against 
 Mr. Parnell was postponed for two days, when that most aggravating 
 of Irish members was at last to be brought to book, to the great joy 
 of the now triumphant majority. 
 
 “The battle is net always to the strong,” according to the pro* 
 verb ; and in the encounter between Mr. Parnell and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, supported a3 the latter was by the mass of the 
 Commons, the wise paradox received ample justification. The Chan¬ 
 cellor was worsted, and knew that he was. So too knew every man 
 in the House who still retained even a remnant of reason. The 
 member for Meath, calmly surveying from the gallery overhead the 
 remarkable scene taking place on the floor beneath him, heard the 
 Speaker’s decision that he was at liberty to resume his place in the 
 House. Thereupon he left the gallery, and walked quietly towards 
 the bench usually occupied by him. Though aware that he had won 
 an undoubted victory, and that he had had besides the gratification 
 of opening out his mind about the Ministerialists pretty freely t:> 
 them, he wore no air of triumph as he went up the floor. Rather, 
 indeed, his mien was that of gentlemanly if not studied unostenta- 
 tion. 
 
 He did not, however, take his seat when he went in. He had had 
 possession of the floor at the time of the Chancellor’s interruption ; 
 he had not been allowed to conclude his speech ; and now, after the 
 lapse of an hour spent in discussing hi3 words and conduct, he pro¬ 
 ceeded to finish the remarks he had originally intended to make. 
 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 ; 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
 He went on, in truth, precisely as if there had been no interruption 
 whatever ; and he amazed all while amusing many by taking up 
 his speech at the exact point where he had left off—absolutely at the 
 very words where he had been checked—“and,” says a newspaper 
 correspondent of the time, “bore himself with all the calmness of a 
 judge amid the uproar.” 
 
 The Marquis of Hartington, leader of the Whig Opposition, and 
 possible leader of the House in the event of a change of Ministry, 
 was naturally a3 anxious to quell Mr. Parnell as Sir Stafford North- 
 cote himself could be ; but he was just as anxious that that should 
 be done without at the same time doing vital injury to the House of 
 Commons itself. Therefore, as Sir Stafford had placed himself in a 
 fake position by his rashness of the 25th July, the Marquis oblig¬ 
 ingly came to his aid at the sitting of Thursday, the 2Gtb, by mildly 
 suggesting that the personal aspect of the obstruction question should 
 be wholly dropped. A capital suggestion this was for the Chancel¬ 
 lor, seeing that he could have made nothing of his charge against 
 Mr. Parnell; so Sir Stafford in the most amiable manner adopted 
 the idea of his right honourable friend the noble marquis, and an¬ 
 nounced that instead of proceeding against the honourable member 
 for Meath on the morrow he would bring forward some resolutions 
 dealing in a general way with the facilitation of “the business of the 
 House.” In all probability this little Parliamentary farce, which 
 went off with great edat i had been arranged beforehand between the 
 right honourable baronet and the equally right honourable marquis. 
 
 The morrow came, Friday, the 27th July, and the resolutions of 
 the Chancellor were duly put before the House. One provided that 
 if a member were twice declared out of order by the Speaker or the 
 chairman of committees it should be in the power of the House to 
 muzzle him by suspending the debate and summarily silencing him 
 during the remainder of the sitting. The other provided that it 
 should not be in the power of any member to move more than once 
 that the chairman do report progress or that the chairman do leave 
 the chair. The first as well as the second of these rules was meant 
 to work practically only while the House sat in committee, for then 
 it was that the new Irish scheme of Parliamentary tactics could be 
 best developed. 
 
 Hours on hours of discussion of these proposals followed their 
 introduction ; for the more thoughtful among the British members 
 were loath to part, even for the remainder of the session, with valu¬ 
 able privilsges of which they themselves might be anxious to a/ail 
 themselves at any moment. The one circumstance of the discussion 
 which astonished and disturbed the faithful Commons was that all 
 the prominent “ obstructives” rose to tell the House that-they had 
 not the faintest idea of offering opposition to the proposed rules. 
 It had naturally been expected that they would resist to the utmost 
 what was so transparently an effort to make a net in which to catch 
 them ; and when, instead of resisting, they seemed rather to ^njoy 
 the process of manufacture going on before their eyes, ah uneasy 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 •Mm 
 
63 C. S. PARNELL, LLP. 
 
 feeling began to prevail in the bosom of many a British member that 
 the Chancellor’s me3hes would prove unequal to their purpose. 
 Nevertheless the Minister's blindly obedient majority obeyed his 
 will, and the Chancellor’s proposals at length became formally 
 “ rules of the House” for the rest of the session of 1877. Here we 
 may state, however, that the only one who came under the opera¬ 
 tion of either of them was a British member—poor Mr. Whalley, to 
 wit—and that in applying the first rule to him the Speaker made a 
 ludicrous blunder which put his own proceeding wholly out of order, 
 and brought down general ridicule on “the new rules.” What 
 effect those rules had in restraining “ the obstructives” will presently 
 be seen. 
 
 The sessions of the London Parliament usually close before the 
 middle of August, to allow of noble lords and honourable and right 
 honourable gentlemen being on the moors in time for the opening of 
 the shooting season—an arrangement* which is obviously les3 for the 
 convenience of legislation than of the legislators. Lo l Augpst was 
 at hand, and the Government’s pet project, the South African Con¬ 
 federation Bill, had still to go through most of its stages. Ministers 
 felt that “something must be done” in earnest at this conjuncture. 
 Monday, the 30th July, passed away, and the South African bill had 
 virtually made no progress. The dreadful member for Dungarvan 
 and his small band of colleagues stood in the way. Need it be said 
 that Mr. Parnell was one of them? Tuesday, the 31st July, dis¬ 
 closed the notable “ something” which had been evolved. 
 
 Anything better calculated to render Parliamentary institutions 
 worthless, to bring them into just contempt, and to make men in¬ 
 clined to turn from them towards some form of intelligent despot¬ 
 ism, can hardly be conceived than the plan put in force on the 31st 
 July. The Conservative members were divided into batches, each 
 batch told off to appear in the House during certain hours of the 
 evening and night. Thus a system of relays was constituted, whose 
 duty it was to relieve each other at stated periods, and so avoid 
 too much fatigue for any. It was perfectly understood from the first 
 that their business was, not to discuss the provisions of the South 
 African Bill, but to pa3S them. Many Whig members lent them¬ 
 selves to this conspiracy, moved thereto by the good old Sassenach 
 •intolerance of Irish liberties. Some of the Home Buie party, with 
 the spaniel’s instinct, did likewise. Every necessary preparation 
 had been made to keep up the strength of the Government men. 
 Meat and drink were provided for them regardless of expense. Sup¬ 
 per for those who remained about the lobbies for divisions in the 
 night, and breakfast for those expected early in the morning, were 
 ordered by the Government whip. Such toothsome delicacies as 
 grilled bones, devilled kidneys, and spatchcocks figured largely on 
 the dining-room tables. Copious supplies of champagne were there 
 to keep up the fighting spirit of the Saxon host. No doubt it had 
 that effect as the hours flew by ; but it had the effect also of making 
 honourable members more uproarious than they might otherwise have 
 been. 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 69 
 
 The straggle began at about five o’clock on Tuesday evening, Mr. 
 O’Donnell, in right of his scores of amendments, leading the assault. 
 The Irish, all told, numbered just seven. Mr. Butt sided with the 
 Government and the majority, and bitterly assailed the colleagues 
 who were too active for his wishes. He publicly denied in the House 
 that they were members of the Irish party, and declared that if he 
 thought their conduct received the sanction of their countrymen he 
 would retire from Irish politics as from “a vulgar brawl.” Yet he 
 should not be judged too harshly. His early Conservative training 
 \ could not but have left some warp in his ideas. 
 
 V Ail night long the contest went on. The chairman of committees 
 / was relieved by a deputy, who in turn was relieved by another, who in 
 ' turn was relieved by still another, who in turn was relieved by the 
 chairman in person. Every amendment proposed was ignorantly 
 defeated, when brought to a division, by a swarm of British members 
 who had not heard a word of the reasons urged in favour of the 
 amendments, but who rushed in to the House with the sole and de- 
 i liberate purpose of voting down any and every proposal that came 
 from the Irish seven. 
 
 As might be expected, Mr. Parnell took a conspicuous part in 
 the fray. In the course of the night, in language which the news¬ 
 paper correspondents characterised as of extraordinary boldness, h9 
 taunted the Englishmen with their love of boasting, sneered at 
 “English fair play,” told them it was best exemplified in their 
 national custom of kicking a man when down, and described then as 
 “big bullies,” who, like all bullies, shrank when they were met 
 with determination. It need hardly be added that such plain and 
 truthful speaking was not at all to the taste of those who heard it; 
 but they had to swallow it as best they could. 
 
 This was just the occasion on which to test the value of the “ new 
 rules.” Strange to say, however, the Irish members kept wonder¬ 
 fully within the bounds of order, while such of their British op¬ 
 ponents as ventured to speak at all were constantly tripping up, and 
 one after another, amid general mortification, had to withdraw and 
 to apologise for his unparliamentary expressions. As if to crown the 
 absurdity of the 'anti-obstruction devices, and to put a climax of 
 ridicule on those doings of “ the assembled wisdom of the country,” 
 the very chairman himself got out of order, made a ruling antago¬ 
 nistic to the Irish which was at once challenged, and was constrained 
 to withdraw it and to say, “ I beg your pardon,” to the infinite grief 
 of the wildly excited but thoroughly humiliated mob of Britishers. 
 To Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, then in his best days as an Irish poli¬ 
 tician, was due a result so provocative of inextinguishable laughter. 
 
 The wear and tear of this most harassing session had for some 
 time been telling on Mr. Parnell. The London correspondent of the 
 Newcastle Chronicle , who is understood to be no other than Mr. 
 Joseph Cowen, M.P.* for Newcastle-on-Tyne, writing a little while 
 before this famous scene at Westminster, describes him as looking 
 much worn and as having aged wonderfully in appearance within a 
 
70 C, S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 comparatively short time. Though his strength was failing he held 
 on resolutely all through the night, saw the sun rise and the gas 
 turned off; and not till a quarter past eight in the morning, after 
 fifteen hours of incessant labour, mental and vocal, protracted strug¬ 
 gle, unending uproar, and unbroken excitement, did he retire from 
 the arena to take a much needed rest. Others had preceded him, 
 and had returned to their posts. But he did not remain long away. 
 Four hours later, at a quarter past twelve, he was again by the side 
 of his few colleagues ; and thenceforward until the last division was 
 taken, after a sitting of the unprecedented duration of twenty-six 
 hours, ho continued with them the unequal fight. 
 
 It should be noted here, as a very interesting incident of this 
 famous sitting of the British Parliament, that Miss Fanny Parnell, 
 one of the high-spirited sisters of the member for Meath, sat all 
 night long in the ladies’ gallery of the Commons chamber, a listener 
 to and a spectator of what was going forward below. The lady’s \ 
 strong Irish sympathies and high-souled courage are very generally 
 known by this time. 
 
 Another notable incident of the twenty-six hours’ sitting may be 
 recalled. There is a chaplain attached to the House of Commons, 
 whose duty it is to prepare with prayer the business of each sitting 
 —an ironical proceeding some may think. He came down to the 
 House at twelve o’clock on Wednesday, book in hand, to perform his 
 functions in the ordinary course at a day sitting. His astonishment 
 may be imagined when he found the night sitting of Tuesday still 
 in full swing at noonday on Wednesday ; and he precipitately beat 
 a retreat. 
 
 The Government bad carried their point. They had forced the 
 South African Confederation bill through committee ; but they had 
 done so at the cost of depriving the House of Commons of all charac¬ 
 ter as a deliberative assembly. Very soon they were made to know 
 that. Every journal in Great Britain and Ireland was ringing with 
 the twenty-six hours’ fight; and though, of course, the British 
 writers at first and chiefly showered blame on the heads of the Irish 
 “obstructives,” yet the conspirators against freedom of debate came 
 in for the gravest censure. Englishmen are as jealous of their hard- 
 won national liberties as they are impatient of the liberties of other 
 peoples ; and from all sides came down a very bail of denunciation 
 on the Government for daring to overturn, by the system of “ relays,” 
 the whole constitution of the House of Commons, and causing it to 
 violate its duty of deliberating on legislative projects. Thus the latest 
 weapon fashioned for the crushing of the new Irish tactics was dis¬ 
 covered to be more fatal to British freedom than to “ obstruction 
 consequently it was never more employed. 
 
 Again, the Irish, with their accustomed skill, had selected for their 
 operations a subject which was certain to afford them ample justifi¬ 
 cation for the most strenuous opposition. The annexation of the 
 Transvaal and the South African.Confederation Act were between 
 them responsible for the Zulu war, with its bloody episodes and its 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 71 
 
 / 
 
 disgraceful disasters of Isandula and the Intombi river, as well as for 
 the heavy pecuniary costs involved—costs which must come out of 
 the pockets chiefly of British taxpayers. Nor is it by any means cer¬ 
 tain, at the time of this writing, that all trouble for the British em¬ 
 pire is at an end in South Africa. It may be a long while ere the 
 Boers are content to remain in that South African Confederation 
 with which they were so violently incorporated. 
 
 About the beginning of August London editors made a singular 
 ’ discovery. They had previously been accustomed to refer to Mr. 
 Parnell as a man wholly without capacity, who had achieved a bad 
 notoriety by a series of wanton outrages against “ the tone of the 
 House.” All of a sudden, however, theyffound out that he was a 
 man of “ undoubted ability,” who showed great skill in selecting 
 the subjects he brought before the House aforesaid, great clearness 
 in presenting his views, and great adroitness in utilising the forms 
 of Parliament. He was spoken of kindly as a young man who had 
 a splendid career open to him if he would employ his undoubted 
 ability in less aggravating ways, and would not set himself in violent 
 opposition to the House. Why, it was hinted, he might before long 
 actually be a Cabinet Minister of the British empire. A man with 
 his gifts might aspire to almost any post. f'Tn other words, if he 
 would only throw over Ireland, accept the Union, and settle down to 
 work as a British party-man, I e would in the end be duly rewarded 
 with “ a place.” Charles Stewart Parnell, nevertheless, heeded as 
 little this British soft sawder as he heeded the uproar to which 
 British members of Parliament nightly treated him. He went on 
 his own way without pause or falter, offering, with Mr. O’Donnell 
 and others, amendments to the Prisons Bill and the South African 
 Bill to the last, some of which were so obviously valuable that the 
 Government accepted them. Nay, a few nights after the twenty- 
 six hours’ fight he calmly “talked out” the Expiring Laws Conti¬ 
 nuance Bill—a Government measure of the very first importance— 
 the feat evoking only unutterable horror. It was too much. Words 
 —nay, even brayings—could not express what was felt on the occa¬ 
 sion! 
 
 The strong language in which Mr. Butt indulged in the debate on 
 the morning of the 1st of August expressed his real feelings, and he 
 soon made an effort to procure the expulsion from the Irish Parlia¬ 
 mentary party of those members who had the temerity to defy Eng¬ 
 lish public opinion and to show the most utter disregard for “the 
 tone of the House.” It should be remembered for him that he was 
 then fast failing both in mind and body, that he was constitutionally 
 averse from anything in the nature of resolute fighting, and that, 
 besides, the training of a life most of which was passed in nisi prius 
 courts inclined him to persuasion and argument for the accomplish¬ 
 ment of his ends. If he were so wanting in sagacity as to regard 
 the British Parliament as though it were an enormous jury sworn to 
 do justice according to the evidence, there was much excuse for 
 him. His effort to expel Mr. Parnell and his friends wholly failed 
 
72 C, S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 at the meeting of the Irish party called for that express purpose. 
 Even though Mr. Butt threatened to resign his leadership if his 
 ■wishes were not complied with, the meeting broke up without doing 
 anything or coming to any decision on the question before them. 
 
 In Ireland the course pursued by Mr. Parnell and his friends was 
 not only understood but thoroughly approved of ; and when it came 
 to be known that efforts were being made by Mr. Butt to crush the 
 fighting men of his own following, it was deemed judicious to give 
 him some unmistakable inkling of the popular judgment on the sub¬ 
 ject in dispute. Accordingly a public meeting in honour of Messrs. 
 Parnell and Biggar was projected in Dublin, to be held in the his¬ 
 toric Round Room of the Rotundo. The committee of management 
 early foresaw that some mode of checking the rush that would be 
 made on the room the night of the meeting was an absolute neces¬ 
 sity. Admission by ticket only was resorted to. The demand for 
 | tickets was amazing. All classes, rich and poor, high and low, made 
 application ; even numerous civil servants eagerly sought for them 
 that they might secure admission. 
 
 The most remarkable session of the British Parliament for over a 
 century came to an end on the 13th of August, 1877. The Rotundo 
 meeting followed on the 21st of the same month. Even under the 
 ticket system every part of the vast hall—platform, floor, and gal¬ 
 lery—was overcrowded. The scene when the two guests of the 
 evening came on the platform was such as was never previously wit¬ 
 nessed, there or elsewhere, by the present generation. Such wild 
 enthusiasm, such unbounded delight, such universal cheering, pro¬ 
 longed for ten minutes, such waving of hats in air by strong-armed 
 men, such fluttering of snowy handkerchiefs by bright-eyed women— 
 such a scene as this is seldom witnessed more than once in a life¬ 
 time. A forest of hats moved to and fro over the densely packed 
 mass on the great platform ; and in front of that black moving mass 
 there stood, erect, unwavering, a tall slight figure, presenting a pale 
 quiet face with set features, which might have caused an observer to 
 think that their owner was stirred by no emotion whatever, either 
 through the thrilling sight before him or the yet more thrilling 
 sounds of joy and welcome which tore the air incessantly, but that 
 now and again a soft light came and went in the bright brown eyes. 
 And when the cheering within the room had died away, lo ! more 
 mighty still in volume came the hurrahing of the many thousands 
 outside the building, who, unable] to effect an entrance, were yet 
 eager to join their voices with those of the more fortunate within, in 
 an overpowering demonstration of welcome to Parnell and Biggar, the 
 two exemplars of faithful Irish representatives. Dublin had spoken 
 on the issue raised by Mr. Butt, and her verdict was emphatically 
 with Mr. Parnell. 
 
 The capital of a nation may not be in strict accord, either politi¬ 
 cally^ or morally, with the rest of the country. Provincial places 
 usually move more slowly than metropolitan ones ; provincial people 
 do not catch up new ideas in a hurry. Dublin indeed had spoken ; 
 
C. S. PAKXELL, 31. P. 73 
 
 but the voice of the provinces had yet to be heard in judgment on 
 the new Parliamentary policy before anyone could assume that it 
 had the approval of the country. Yet so rapidly did this policy com¬ 
 mend itself to the national intelligence that within a few weeks Mr. 
 Parnell was invited to and honoured at public meetings and ban¬ 
 quets by several provincial districts, the old fortres3-town of Kil- 
 mallock spiritedly leading the way. Wherever, in fact, the people 
 were given the opportunity of making a pronouncement, it was em¬ 
 phatically on the side of Parnell as against Butt. 
 
 That circumstance, however, did not prevent Mr. Butt from 
 retaining much influential support for the ‘ 4 fair-and-easy” method 
 he himself favoured. He had too often branded as “ revolutionary” 
 the more active and persistent one not to have had a following 
 among the large number of people who, in Ireland as elsewhere, 
 shrink from a course which they regard as violent. 
 
 . Nevertheless Mr. Butt must have felt that the sceptre was slip¬ 
 ping from his grasp ; that his title of leader was scarcely more than 
 nominal; that his power over the Irish people, whether to spur 
 forward or restrain, was fast ebbing away. It was a mortifying 
 position for the great old man, and its bitterness must have been 
 aggravated by the consciousness of failing health. His step was 
 even then growing slow and heavy; his great frame, massive as 
 an oak-tree’s trunk, had fallen far forward at the shoulders ; the 
 movement of his big heart was feeble, and his pulses made less 
 healthful music than of yore. Worse than all, the splendid intellect, 
 once so strong and so versatile, and on which a great question 
 seemed to lie„ as lightly as a pebble in a giant’s palm, was giving 
 way, was wearing down, was losing both power and elasticity. And 
 the soul of the old man was grieved exceedingly. 
 
 In the hope of still effecting good with the Irish Parliamentary 
 party, he consented, although reluctantly, to the holding of a 
 national conference for the purpose of settling the vexed question of 
 . policy. While waiting for the assembling of this conference the year 
 1877 passed away. 
 
 In January, 1878, the conference was duly held, A majority of 
 those present, as well as all the weighty argument, was so plainly on 
 the side of the new tactics that the prominent supporters of the 
 old did not dare to take a division on the question in dispute ; and 
 a compromise—suggested by Mr. Parnell, who did not want to 
 break up or divide the Parliamentary party, but only to put some 
 earnestness into it—was effected. Mr. Butt could not but have felt 
 that he had sustained a defeat; and the feeling was not calculated 
 to lighten his vexation at the course affairs were and had been taking. 
 In a little while he formally resigned the leadership of the party, but 
 resumed it, at least nominally, on the request of the members. When, 
 later on, he resigned the post of president of the Home Rule Confede- I 
 ration, driven thereto by the repeated declarations of branches of 
 that body in favour of the new policy, and when on the instant Mr. 
 Parnell was unanimously, elected his successor, the cup of bitter- 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 ness must have been filled for him, and only a rancorous or a dull 
 cold heart could refuse him pity and sympathy. He had made large 
 sacrifices of time and money for Ireland, doing the best for her ac¬ 
 cording to his lights ; he had given stupendous labour in the draw¬ 
 ing up of Irish bills and the like; he had devoted several of the 
 best years of his life with great earnestness and energy to the fur¬ 
 therance of Irish popular interests in many ways; yet, on the one 
 hand, he found that in spite cf his numerous appeals to them 
 a majority of the Irish Parliamentary party, while claiming to be 
 truly his followers, would not work steadily with him, and in im¬ 
 portant crises were ever ready to split up into tail3 of the two great 
 .British factions ; and, on the other hand, because he was so unwise 
 as to identify himself completely with that worthless majority, who 
 would neither be led nor driven to do right, he found the masses of 
 the Irish people falling away from him and enthusiastically enrolling 
 themselves under the banners of the men for whom his strongest denun¬ 
 ciations had been reserved. Who could envy him the feelings he 
 must have had on awakening to the consciousness of desertion on both 
 sides, while he himself fully believed that the desertion on either was 
 wholly undeserved ? Justice to his memory ! Even though he em¬ 
 ployed the brief remainder of his life and the remnant of his decay¬ 
 ing powers rather in a struggle to retain the leadership from which 
 the popular will had virtually deposed him, than in serious effort for 
 the interest of the country of his birth and his love, we can still wish 
 that the clay may rest lightly on his breast in that lone humble 
 grave in sea-washed Donegal where he chose that his body should 
 mingle with Irish earth. 
 
 When Mr. Parnell entered the London Parliament in 1878 his 
 position was an infinitely stronger one than it had theretofore been. 
 He was no longer an individual member struggling against an over¬ 
 bearing and intolerant majority. He had acquired something of the 
 character of a national representative. His previous action had been 
 sufficiently endorsed to give him much more than individual influ- 
 1 ence. All through the session of 1878, therefore, though he still 
 worked in the grooves he had previously made, extraordinary scenes 
 were not the ordinary result of his proceedings. On the contrary, 
 the Government were inclined to conciliate him to a large extent, 
 much to the disgust of many of their stupid followers, who thought 
 that hanging would be too mild a fate for “that Irish fellow.” The 
 British press still harped on “ obstruction,” and Mr. ^Parnell was 
 actually designated publicly “a curse to the kingdom”—the king¬ 
 dom referred to, we need hardly say, being Great Britain. 
 
 At length, so intolerable to the British Parliament and Govern¬ 
 ment had the situation grown, a Parliamentary committee was ap¬ 
 pointed to consider how best an end could be put to “ obstruc¬ 
 tion. ” Mr. Parnell’s firm position in the House was recognised by 
 the Government placing him on this committee. While serving on 
 it he completely baffled every effort made towards showing that he 
 and the few who acted with him had been at all in the wrong. He 
 
I 
 
 C. S, PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 ro 
 
 aho established the futility of striving to restrain him even a little 
 in the future, except by the adoption of some method which must re¬ 
 strain British members also, and so be hurtful to Parliament itself. 
 In short, so skilful were the questions he put to the various wit¬ 
 nesses, and so ably did he expose the fact that the real drift of the 
 inquiry was to repress only such Irish members as stood up man¬ 
 fully for their country, that the British press positively took to com¬ 
 plimenting him, praised him for his ability, his wisdom, and his 
 mastery of Parliamentary procedure, and suggested to the Ministry 
 that he should be often appointed on committees of the House, 
 where he could do most useful work, and at the same time be kept 
 occupied in such a way as to prevent him from delaying the ordinary 
 business of Parliament. 
 
 Undisturbed either by censure or flattery, he continued his labours 
 persistently, amazing all, not only by the vast number of subjects 
 he took up, but by the fulness of his knowledge regarding each. 
 There was no stopping him, because he always spoke clearly and 
 pointedly to the question before the House. And at last, as the 
 days of the session were quickly running out, and Government busi¬ 
 ness was wofully behind, the Ministry hit on the sensible plan of 
 buying off his opposition for a couple of months. This wa3 done 
 by the introduction of the Jrish Intermediate Education Bill, which 
 went far towards putting Irish Catholics on an equality with Irish 
 Protestants in the matter of middle-class education, restored to Ire¬ 
 land a million of pounds out of the many millions taken from her 
 and transferred to the Imperial exchequer, and must prove of in¬ 
 calculable benefit to the next generation of Irishmen. 
 
 The session of 1879 was a repetition of the previous one in its 
 leading features. Mr. Parnell devoted himself, among other labours, 
 to a continued criticism of the Government Army Bill, with tne 
 result that it left committee a totally different bill from what it was 
 when it went in. About thirty of his amendments were accepted by 
 Ministers, and in the course of the long struggle he succeeded in 
 changing the opinion of the House on several points of army discip¬ 
 line. Meanwhile Government business was again tvofully delayed ; 
 and another bid for Mr. Parnell’s inactivity was made by the in¬ 
 troduction of an Irish University Bill—this, too, in face of a Minis¬ 
 terial statement, made early in the session, that the administration 
 had no intention of dealing with the subject of Irish university edu¬ 
 cation. 
 
 Out of this Ministerial concession arose a most unpleasant episode. 
 The bill notoriously did not attempt to do full justice to the Catholic 
 body. Mr. Parnell firmly held the view that the same method 
 which had forced it into being could improve it in constitution. 
 Several of the Irish Catholic members were of a like conviction, and 
 were anxious to keep up the pressure on Government. But, alas ! a 
 majority of the Irish Catholic members would not agree to this cou¬ 
 rageous and obviously right course. Sharp words are said to haye 
 passed between the two sections at a private meeting of the party ; 
 
 9 
 
76 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 and Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, member for Tipperary county, and 
 proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, felt himself especially aggrieved 
 by Mr. Parnell through something that took place on the occasion. 
 He revenged himself in the columns of his paper by floating the 
 story that Mr. Parnell had called those who differed from him 4 4 a 
 cowardly set of Papist rats,*’ and another story which charged him 
 with having used offensive epithets in regard to several of his bro¬ 
 ther members. The first story was promptly contradicted by flve of 
 the Catholic members present at the meeting—all men of the highest 
 character, both personally and politically. Three others, who poli¬ 
 tically cannot be said to stand by any means so high, gave a kind 
 of support to Mr. Gray’s statement, but ail three differed materially 
 j in their versions of the words alleged to have been used by Mr. 
 Parnell. The second story, when traced to its origin, was found 
 to have no foundation whatever. The whole country rose almost 
 as one man to sustain the member for Meath under these unfair 
 attacks, and both Mr. Gray and his journal fell into deep discredit. 
 A reconciliation between the two gentlemen was effected through 
 the intervention of his Grace the Archbishop of Cashel, Mr. Parnell 
 behaving with the utmost magnanimity in the affair. 
 
 The Irish University Act—-which, though it did nob confer com¬ 
 plete equality on the Catholics, was yet a very useful measure—was 
 the trophy Mr. Parnell had to show for his Parliamentary warfare of 
 1879. It is needless to recal that by this time he had all Ireland 
 at his back, except the political tricksters and the British party- 
 men. A striking proof of the fact was afforded by the Ennis elec¬ 
 tion in the Summer of 1879. In that spirited town, so celebrated 
 for its connection with Catholic Emancipation just half a century 
 before, Mr. Parnell was able to carry a candidate pledged to the 
 active policy in Parliament, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 bishop of the diocese and the local clergy. It need hardly be ob¬ 
 served that the population of Ennis are among the most devotedly 
 Catholic in the world, and that nowhere is the advice of appointed 
 spiritual guides received with more unqualified respect, and ordi¬ 
 narily with more unqualified acceptance, even in temporal concerns. 
 
 Mr. Parnell had long seen how destructive to Irish prosperity 
 was the system of Irish landlordism. Scarcely had the agitation for 
 a reduction of rents begun than he reduced the rents of hi3 own 
 tenants, although, as may well be supposed, they were not rack- 
 rents. From the outset he flung himself into the land agitation started 
 by Mr. Davitt, coming over from the London Parliament to speak 
 at one of the earliest Mayo meetings in the beginning of the Spring 
 of 1879. When his harassing Parliamentary labours were closed 
 for the session, instead of taking required rest, as others would have 
 done, he went into the land agitation heart and soul, attending meet¬ 
 ings in all parts of the country. One very appreciable effect of the 
 agitation was a widespread reduction of rents which retained mil¬ 
 lions of pounds in the impoverished tenants’ pockets. More valuable 
 still were the lessons impressed by Mr. Parnell on the awakening til- 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 77 
 
 iers of the soil. Among others he taught them that it was wrong 
 to let themselves and their families starve in order to pay rackrents 
 to landlords ; he taught them to organize and combine for mutual 
 protection ; he taught them to regard the establishment of a peasant 
 proprietary as the one permanent settlement of the Irish land ques¬ 
 tion ; and he struck out a practicable plan which, while compen¬ 
 sating the landlords for the relinquishment of their proprietorial 
 privileges, would inevitably transfer to the tillers the ownership of 
 the soil. 
 
 Finally, seeing that the British Government did not mean to come 
 to the relief of the unfortunate people trembling on the verge of 
 starvation, and that it did mean to uphold the rapacious system of 
 landlordism which had driven them there, he determined to appeal 
 to the people of the United States. They were free; they were 
 generous ; they were powerful; the moral influence of their public 
 opinion would be a tremendous force if arrayed on the side of a 
 plundered people. To them he would speak with the living voice ; 
 before them he would plainly put the case of his clients. He was 
 commissioned by the Irish National Land League and Tenants’ De¬ 
 fence Association. 
 
 The time of his departure was postponed considerably by a 
 rumour, which seems to have been skilfully set afloat by some one 
 from the neighbourhood of Dublin Castle, that the Government in¬ 
 tended to arrest him on a charge of sedition, just as it had arrested 
 Messrs, Davitt, Daly, Brennan, and Killen for words spoken at land 
 meetings. Mr. Parnell boldly stayed to meet the arrest. 
 
 Finding that it came not, he, in conjunction with Mr. John Dillon, 
 dared the Winter’s storms and gave up the social pleasures of the 
 festive Christmas season in the execution of their mission, Christ¬ 
 mas Day he spent in the middle of the Atlantic ; and as for storms, 
 his voyage was one of the most tempestuous known. One of the 
 finest of ocean steamers, which bore him and his patriotic colleague, 
 was, by stress of weather, delayed between three and four days 
 longer than the ordinary voyage. The excitement throughout Ire¬ 
 land was painful in its intensity as morning after morning went by 
 after the eleventh day, and the telegraph had not flashed back the 
 news of the vessel’s safe arrival in New York harbour. When that 
 welcome news did come, however, and all fear for Mr. Parnell’s 
 safety wa3 at an end, there was a general and grateful seuse of relief. 
 
 Landlordism dies hard. Scarcely had he set foot on the American 
 shore than he found himself confronted by a host of hostile influ¬ 
 ences for which he could scarcely have been prepared. The cables 
 had been busily employed against him in advance; a section of the 
 press had been “nobbled”; so too had a section of prominent and 
 once popular Irish-Americans. But the member for Meath was not 
 a man to be easily dismayed. He fronted every foe in turn, and 
 battled as stoutly and steadily in the new arena as in the old. In 
 spite of all opposition, covert as well as open, his mission must be 
 accounted a great success. 
 
 - 
 
78 C. S. PARNELL, M. P. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow him through his American tour. Suf¬ 
 fice it to say that his progress was like that of some beloved monarch 
 through crowds of rejoicing subjects. Cities contended for his pre¬ 
 sence ; invitations rained on him; deputations waited on him from 
 far off places ; governors of States, mayors of towns, and other pub¬ 
 lic dignitaries, thronged around him ; the thunder of cannon saluted 
 him in many places on his arrival; the citizen soldiery of a free 
 people frequently lined his route or surrounded his carriage as guards 
 of honour ; great processions were organised for his reception ; dark¬ 
 ness was often banished for him by the glare of innumerable lighted 
 torches ; presentations of divers sort3 flowed in on him—addresses of 
 welcome, ode3 and poems, floral wreaths and bouquets ; fetes and 
 banquets were prepared for him in profusion ; at wayside railway 
 stations he was called on to speak from his car ; the largest halls 
 were everywhere secured for his lectures, and these were always 
 crammed ; nay, in Chicago, which has one of the vastest and finest 
 opefra-houses in the world, that building was deemed far too small for 
 the accommodation of the many thousands who were eager to see and 
 hear him, so the immense Exposition Building of the city was spe¬ 
 cially prepared for the delivery of his address, and twenty thousand 
 persons, paying each either two or four shillings for the privilege of 
 admission, gathered into the enormous hall on the night he spoke 
 • there. The admission fees to his lectures were invariably as high 
 as at Chicago, and the various halls were as invariably packed. Not 
 alone through those fees, but by direct subscription also, he received 
 large sums of money, which he promptly transmitted to Ireland for 
 relief purposes ; to say nothing of the fact that by his presence and 
 proceedings he briskly stimulated sources from which otherwise but 
 little was to be expected, as in the case of the New York Herald 
 fund. In short, the man who went to the United States to plead 
 in behalf of a'starving people, and denounce the most vicious syst&m 
 1 of land tenure in the world, had greater than a conqueror’s triumphs 
 in his marvellous progress. To crown all, he received from the 
 legislature of the United States, as well as from several of the State 
 legislatures, the highest honour it was in their power to pay, in the 
 granting to him of the privilege of addressing them from the floor of 
 the chamber precisely as if he were a member. The scene in the 
 Washington House of Representatives was specially remarkable. 
 The galleries of the House were packed immediately upon the open¬ 
 ing of the doors, and the floor was filled with members and their 
 wives and daughters to testify their recognition of the services ren¬ 
 dered by Mr. Parnell to Ireland. The Speaker of the House intro¬ 
 duced the distinguished guest in the following words :— 
 
 “The House will be in order. The session of this evening is in 
 consequence of a resolution adopted by the House of Representatives, 
 which the Chair will now cause to be read by the Clerk.” 
 
 Following the reading of the resolution, the Speaker said :— 
 
 “ In conformity with the terms of this resolution I have the 
 honour and pleasure to introduce to you Charles Stewart Parnell, of 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 79 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Ireland, who comes among us to speak of the distresses of his coun¬ 
 try. ” 
 
 When the applause in the densely packed galleries had subsided, 
 Mr. Parnell addressed the House, and was listened to with the 
 closest attention. His address occupied about half an hour in its 
 delivery, and was, says a listener, “a calm and able presentation of 
 the evils under which Ireland suffers.” 
 
 After the House, on the motion of Mr, O’Connor, of South Caro¬ 
 lina, had adjourned, a large number breasted the severe snow-storm 
 r3ging to att®nd the serenade to Mr. Parnell at Willard’s Hotel, ten¬ 
 dered him by Professor Joyce’s band, A collation had been prepared 
 by the Congressional Reception Committee for their distinguished 
 gnes ts. Mr. Young, Governor of Ohio, presided ; Mr. O’Connor 
 acting as vice-president. Speaker Randall was also present; and, in 
 truth, the whole company was a distinguished one. 
 
 The remarkable honour conferred on Mr. Parnell by the Washing¬ 
 ton House of Representatives had but three precedents—namely, in 
 the cases of Lafayette, the hero of two continents ; the celebrated 
 Bishop England, of Charleston ; and Kossuth, the noted Hungarian 
 patriot, when in enforced exile. It should be noted also that the 
 President, surrounded by his Cabinet, gave an audience to Mr. Par- j 
 nell, as if he were the duly accredited envoy of some organised and 
 independent foreign State. Such honours well mark the effect of the 
 Irish ambassador’s mission. 
 
 Here we bring to a close our biographical sketch, leaving Mr, 
 Parnell to continue the noble career so well begun and continued, 
 and which we feel assured, if life and health be spared to him, he j 
 will splendidly complete. 
 
 p 
 
50 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 i. 
 
 SOME PARTICULARS OF C. S. PARNELL’S EARLY LIFE. 
 
 We are indebted to Mrs. Delia Parnell, mother of Charles Stewart 
 Parnell, for the following authentic particulars regarding his early 
 career, in addition to those which will be found on an earlier page in 
 the body of our biographical sketch :— 
 
 As a child he was remarkable for wit, poetical fancies, sprightli¬ 
 ness, and enterprise. 
 
 At the age of seven, on the outbreak of the Crimean war, in 1853, 
 he amused his fellow-passengers in the Rathdrum stage, on his way 
 home from school, by comparing the populations and military strength 
 of the various European Powers, with a view to determining their re¬ 
 spective chances in the event of a general European war. Some of 
 the passengers remarked that the little fellow had been wonderfully 
 well taught. 
 
 In alluding to his early taste for mechanical science, as exhibited 
 in his efforts to construct a “ perpetual motion” machine, Mrs. Par¬ 
 nell says : “ Some danger attended his experiments about perpetual 
 motion ; and when he feared an explosion he would call out to every¬ 
 one to get out of the room, but remain in it near his machine him¬ 
 self.” This anecdote of the boy is surely characteristic of the man ; 
 for at least on two occasions during the land agitation in the West, 
 at Balia and at Castlerea, when there was imminent prospect of a 
 collision between the armed police and the unarmed people, he dis¬ 
 played a like personal intrepidity and a similar care for the safety of 
 others, flinging himself into the gap of danger, so that the lives of 
 the people should not be imperilled. 
 
 Referring to his daring escapade in the effort to make bullets 
 by pouring melted lead from the roof of the mansion of 
 Avondale, Mrs. Parnell remarks : “ It was a great undertaking 
 for a small boy safely to lug an iron pot, such as pota¬ 
 toes are boiled in, but filled with hot coals, up two high 
 pairs of stairs, two high ladders, the ascent from the lead valley in 
 the midst of the slated roof to the top of it, and down to the coping 
 around the roof. To this day his enterprises are vast, but with this 
 advantage now—that the greatest enterprises have the greatest 
 opinions, the greatest masses, and the greatest natural forces behind 
 them.” 
 
 Ampler details concerning Mr. Parnell’s school life than we were 
 able to give previously are here appended : “ His education, after 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. SI 
 
 having been considerably advanced at home, was continued, at seven 
 years of age, at a small school, Miss Marly’s, in Somersetshire, 
 England, where, while eagerly and advantageously pursuing his 
 studies, he fell ill, and lay for weeks almost at the point of death, 
 through typhoid fever. Since then he has never enjoyed the robust 
 health of his childhood, and the illness left an unnatural nervous 
 irritability, which, however, he has conquered. Soon after this 
 illness he was taken back to Ireland, and placed under a private 
 tutor. After this he was sent to the Rev. Mr. Barton’s, in Derby¬ 
 shire, where he again improved greatly under the care and tuition of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Barton, both of them kind and superior people. Mrs. 
 Barton belonged to a celebrated literary family. I will remark,’’ 
 says Mrs. Parnell, “ that particular pains were taken to place 
 Charles with manifestly kind and religious people. Miss Marly was 
 especially so. She was a Dissenter. After his father’s death Charles 
 was kept at home under a private tutor, until, at Lady London¬ 
 derry’s instance, I sent him to the Rev. Mr. Wishaw's, in Oxford¬ 
 shire, whence he went to Cambridge. Mr. Wishaw was a specially 
 kind, highly educated, and accomplished tutor. All my son’s 
 tutors,” continues Mrs. Parnell, “expressed a high opinion of 
 Charles’s abilities ; and the tutors of my three sons reposed a pecu¬ 
 liar trust in their honour and steadiness. All three have been- 
 remarkable for goodness and tenderness of feeling, industry, patience, 
 and perseverance—attributes remarkably derived.” The reader of 
 these pages will, we are sure, concur with Mrs. Parnell in deeming 
 those attributes “remarkably derived.” Few men had ever more 
 illustrious ancestry. 
 
 We get a pleasant glimpse of Charles Stewart Parnell’s natural , 
 generosity of disposition, as well as of the warmth of Irish feeling 
 which kindly treatment ever evokes, from the following :—“ Charles 
 always deprecated any lack of hospitality at his early home, want¬ 
 ing every man and beast that came to it to be entertained ; and I 
 found, while I was a widow, that tenants and retainers who needed 
 it while travelling, adopted my house as a home, as in feudal times, 
 while, such was the devotion of the people on our place to us, I 
 thought that did we require it we could raise a corps of defenders 
 among them. Nothing could exceed the faithfulness and unselfish¬ 
 ness of our employees.” 
 
 Another pleasant glimpse—one of family life—is afforded in the 
 appended passage : “My children have always been good and de¬ 
 voted to one another. Charles, in particular, has shown that the 
 child was father to the man ; for the energy and devotion he now 
 manifests to his country—to those who need a mighty help—are the 
 outgrowth of his youthful activity and consideration in favour of 
 his family, and of his feeling, just, and indulgent judgments, respect, 
 and unselfishness towards all who came near him. In these traits, 
 and in his prudence, he resembles his late uncle, my devoted bro¬ 
 ther, Colonel Charles Tudor Stewart, who was perfect as a son, a 
 brother, an uncle, and a friend.” 
 
 .mwnriyiiiiwwwir'WfVb 
 
82 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 
 II. 
 
 FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PARNELL FAMILY. 
 
 
 
 In the Freeman’s Journal of February 15, 1821, a correspondent 
 who signs himself “C.,” and dates from “ 16 Parliament-street, 12th 
 February, 1821,” writes as follows of Mr. C. S. Parnell’s grand¬ 
 father, William Parnell, brother of Sir Henry, and M.P. for county 
 Wicklow, to whom but a passing reference was made in a previous 
 page :— 
 
 ‘‘Few men in modern times excelled the late William Parnell, Esq., 
 in those virtues which may be beneficially recorded. Descended 
 from an illustrious family, he obtained his first literary instructions 
 under the superintendence of his incorruptible and patriotic father 
 —the late Sir John Parnell, Part. Passing over the scenes of in¬ 
 fancy and early youth, I find Mr. Parnell a distinguished student in 
 the University of Cambridge, excelling in the cultivation of the lib¬ 
 eral sciences, unequalled in chaste literature. He returned to his 
 native land at the period of his maturity. The first emotion of his 
 generous and exalted mind was sorrow for the condition of his coun¬ 
 try, and his first desire was to remedy some portion of her manifold 
 evils. He could not refer to the situation of his Catholic country¬ 
 men in any other terms than those of shame and abhorrence ; neither 
 wa3 he content to linger out his days in inactive and unprofitable 
 sympathy. 
 
 “ In 1S06 he published his excellent work upon the Penal Code 
 affecting the Catholic body, in which he reviewed, with boldness 
 and brilliancy, the bad policy of past ages, and was the first to trace, 
 in a manner becoming an efficient statesman, the cruel and perni¬ 
 cious ramifications of that system. 
 
 “In 1807 he sent forth his ‘Apology for the Irish Catholics,’ 
 in which he exhibited in vivid colours the injustice of the imputa¬ 
 tions made against that body. 
 
 “He continued to the latest period of his life the same spirit of 
 friendly exertion, in and out of the senate, to promote their claims, 
 and had nearly completed an invaluable History of the Irish Roman 
 Catholics, enumerating their many grievances and sufferings from 
 the reign of Henry the Eighth to the present period. 
 
 “ The poorer classes of his countrymen were the dearest objects of 
 his anxious and earnest solicitude. He studied their wants and 
 suatained their interests with a care and devotion almost chivalrous. 
 His kindly heart was deeply grieved by the neglect of education to 
 whicn the peasantry were exposed, and his earnest labours were daily 
 engaged in endeavours to alleviate the evil. 
 
 “Every attempt to educate the poor could claim a participation in 
 his patronage and purse ; and his last effort was to obtain from the 
 Government a grant for the education of the Catholic poor on princi* 
 pies unobjectionable in theory and practical in application. He found 
 
 
 
 
there were objections made to the reading of the Testament unaided 
 by the guidance of any annotations ; his wish was to serve, and not 
 offend, and accordingly, in the true spirit of his comprehensive liber¬ 
 ality, he published, at his own expense, five thousand copies of the 
 notes approved of by the Roman Catholic Archbishops of [reland, to 
 be gratuitously distributed with the New Testament, 
 
 “ His forbearance and consideration towards his numerous 
 tenantry obtained a return of attachment the most enviable and 
 animated, the natural result of the excellent qualities of the heart 
 that render the relation of landlord and tenant a reciprocal bless¬ 
 
 ing. 
 
 “ Possessing captivating manners, a cultivated mind, and eminent 
 rank and connexions, his society was cherished and appreciated by 
 the most exalted ; but his desire was to be useful rather than orna¬ 
 mental, and he manifested the sincerity of that predilection by his 
 deportment through life. He endured the most severe of human afflic¬ 
 tions—the loss of a beloved, amiable, and endearing wife—with the 
 resignation that became a Christian, but with a sorrow that would 
 not be discreditable to the most dignified philosophy. Indeed that 
 calamity bore heavily upon him to the last ; but his parental solici¬ 
 tude was only increased, if possible, by the additional duties that 
 devolved upon him. 
 
 “ He was a good man in all his courses ; but as a father he ex¬ 
 celled almost inimitably. The education of his children occupied a 
 principal portion of his time and thoughts ; these tender orphans, 
 bearing the marks of his care, now furnish living proofs of the ex¬ 
 cellent qualities of their lamented guide, director, and parent. 
 
 “On Friday, the 22nd of December, 1820, -he had been occupied 
 with the Right Honourable Secretary for Ireland, in procuring 
 through him a grant of £3,000 annually, to be vested in the Roman 
 Catholic bishops of Ireland, for the education of their poor; and 
 that day, on which he had completed the preliminaries to carry his 
 benevolent design into effect, having proved unusually wet, he caught 
 a severe cold that terminated in a malignant fever. He died at the 
 house of his revered and distinguished father-in-law, Colonel How¬ 
 ard, on the 2nd of January, 1S24, in the forty-fourth year of his 
 age, being ill but eleven days, 
 
 “No man was ever withdrawn from the busy scene of life more 
 beloved, revered, and esteemed by those who were favoured with 
 his acquaintance ; and few have left behind them more acute lamen¬ 
 tations for the departure of generous philanthropy and honoured 
 worth. One who valued him in life, pays this inadequate tribute to 
 his memory.” 
 
 The two eldest of Mr. C. S. Parnell’s brothers have been long 
 dead. One, William Tudor Parnell, fell a victim to bad vaccination, 
 after, a long struggle, in his infancy. The other, Hayes Parnell, 
 was a most promising youth. From the age of six or thereabouts he 
 evinced tendencies which afterwards developed into remarkable 
 literary and artistic talent, and he was early noted for patriotism. 
 
S4 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 He wrote both prose and poetry well while still a boy ; and in his 
 passion for military and naval life was wont to cover sheets cf paper 
 with original battle-scenes, and with plans for constructing the best 
 and swiftest ships. When he wished to ascertain areas, while as 
 yet he was ignorant of the very name of Euclid, he drew, for the 
 sake of accuracy, problems of hi3 own invention. Although a 
 pleurisy carried him off at so youthful an age as fifteen, he had 
 written a “History cf Ireland as she is to be,” in which he intro¬ 
 duced laws of his own framing for her free government. 
 
 John Howard Parnell, Mr, C, S. Parnell’s elder living brother, 
 who was a Home Pule candidate for the representation of Wicklow 
 county at the general election of 1S74, has attained singular success 
 in the growing of peaches on his land in Alabama. He has been 
 mentioned in agricultural periodicals, especially “ for having obtained 
 by his skill the best and largest peaches ever grown. Their size is 
 almost incredible.” In quality they are said to reach perfection; 
 and the number of them Mr. J. H. Parnell annually produces is 
 astonishing. He was the first to export peaches in good condition 
 from America to Ireland. Of his estate in the county Armagh the 
 corporation of Trinity College is the head landlord. Mrs. Parnell 
 describes him as having more of the physical strength of Sir John 
 Parnell, whom he is said to resemble, than her other sons ; and 
 relates of him the following anecdote :— 
 
 “When a boy, having received some great provocation, but un¬ 
 willing to hurt anyone weaker than himself, he seized hold of a heavy 
 mahogany old-fashioned arm chair, and saying, ‘I must hurt some¬ 
 thing,’ smashed it to pieces at one blow on the floor.” She sums up 
 his character by saying that he is “full of pity and kindness for 
 everyone.” 
 
 Mr. C. S. Parnell’s younger brother, Henry Tudor Parnell, at the 
 very threshold of manhood gave practical effect to the theory of 
 peasant proprietorship by disposing of his estate to those who tilled 
 it. Mrs. Parnell says of him : 
 
 “ My youngest son, always a hard worker and student, and deli¬ 
 cately honourable, showed extraordinary business capacity, imme¬ 
 diately on coming of age, in the rearrangement of his property and 
 its sale to his tenants.” The name of the estate thus referred to is 
 Clonmore. It furnished the courtesy title of the eldest sons of the 
 Earls of Wicklow. 
 
 III. 
 
 ADDITIONAL DETAILS REGARDING C. S. PARNELL’S 
 MATERNAL ANCESTRY. 
 
 “ My grandfather, Charles Stewart,” writes Mrs. Parnell, “ quar¬ 
 tered the royal arms of Scotland, which were on a large quantity of 
 family plate he brought with him to this country ; but at the time 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 85 
 
 of the Revolutionary war, when the distress in this infant country 
 (the United States) was extreme, his widow—who, besides being of 
 Milesian origin, was still further revolutionised in this land, and 
 being by his death fr$ed from the influence of her semi- 
 Scotch husband and ol r the little god of love (more potent 
 than blood)—melted down her plate to help suitably to rear her 
 eight children, which was a matter of primary importance. This 
 she did through the urgency of her son-in-law, John MacAuley, 
 father of Admiral MacAuley, of the United States navy. She was a 
 lady of excellent education, polished manners, superior beauty of 
 face and figure, and strong and unblemished character. All her 
 children prospered, through her kind and yet severe training. Soft 
 as a mother’s heart is to her manly boys, she did not hesitate to 
 punish them, particularly for the least breach of truth or chivalry. 
 
 “Her son Charles was full of fun, and sometimes of mischief. I 
 remember his telling me how severely his mother punished him for 
 upsetting the stall of an apple-woman—so severely that he never did 
 the like again. I remember hearing that when his dancing master’s 
 back was turned he would amuse himself pulling out the peg (the 
 article used in those days) that stopped up his master’s barrel of 
 beer. It was from dancing school he ran away to sea. His mother 
 did not contemplate such ‘ steps’ on his part. She had promised his 
 father on his death-bed that his son should never embrace a sea¬ 
 faring life. 
 
 “ My father inherited from his parents, and, as I remember, from 
 his mother certainly, the grace and dignity of his carriage and the 
 charm of his manner and conversation. I remember the delightful 
 stories she told and the sweet songs she sang at ninety-three and 
 later. She never seemed old in any respect. Her husband must 
 have been very attractive to have captivated, when so much older 
 than herself, this charming beauty, and a reputed heiress of fifteen. 
 She blamed some of her family for encouraging her elopement, as 
 they coveted her prospective wealth, and wished to get rid of her. 
 Only to my father, I believe, she mentioned their names, she so dis¬ 
 dained their conduct. 
 
 “Her husband, Charles Stewart, gave half his fortune to the Re» 
 volutionary Government, and so helped to impoverish his family, as 
 they never received any compensation for its surrender. My father, 
 I have been told, gave the ships he owned to the United States Go¬ 
 vernment in the war of 1812 with Great Britain, and received no 
 remuneration beyond what his sword brought him. With similar 
 devotion to a yet poor country, he never urged his claims to large 
 amounts of prize-money, including those for the capture of the 
 Levant and several British merchantmen, the latter not mentioned 
 in his life. My grandfather, William Tudor, or Judge Tudor, as he 
 was called, also generously spent a colossal fortune in benefiting in¬ 
 dividuals, the public of Boston and its environs. Both sides of 
 my family were wealthy at first, and, for this land then, immensely 
 wealthy. Therefore, but for the traits mentioned, and had they let 
 
86 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 their means moderately take care of themselves, we would have been 
 among the richest of the rich in this rich country. However, we 
 have been taken care of by a wise Power, and their descendants 
 have never been seen begging their bread. I tell the story that it 
 may point a moral and adorn a tale. 
 
 “My father, it was said by English gentlemen visiting this 
 country, had the most fascinating manners of any gentleman in it— 
 a wide assertion; for none, in old grand gracp, urbanity, wit, and 
 intelligence united, not even French noblemen of the ancien regime , 
 surpass Southern gentlemen in these States. But my father was 
 descended from Irish gentlemen, under the hollow of whose feet 
 water could run without touching them ; from a race that even in 
 the poorest looked to me, a young American nurtured among great 
 men, when I first landed at Kingstown, a3 one and all gentlemen at 
 ease, as they lounged about with their hands in their pockets to 
 keep them warm and clean while looking for a job. If it is true 
 that what is bred in the bone will come out in the breeding, the Irish 
 must have drunk, in better days, of congenial Pierian springs, and, 
 for mother-milk, sucked honey from Hybla ; for no fustian can dis¬ 
 guise, no hardship, obliterate, the keen intellect, the ready wit, the 
 noble composure of their solid substratum, their ancient foundation. 
 
 “A brother of Mrs. Segrave (a late resident in the county 
 Wicklow), while he was a middy in the Cyane or Levant, was in 
 great terror at false stories told him of American conquerors, which 
 my father noticing, patted the little fellow on the back, and told 
 him to fear nothing. My father also paroled and helped home the 
 crews and officers of those two ships. 
 
 “ When taking some prizes into Gibraltar he was vexed by 
 Admiral Lord Carysfort’s sending an officer to one of them to inves¬ 
 tigate their business, but the officer in command of said prize 
 threatened to cut the first man down who stepped on board. My 
 father afterwards went to Portsmouth in England to complain of 
 Lord Carysfort’s interference, and received an apology from the 
 Admiralty. One of my kindest friends afterwards was the brother 
 of the said Admiral. Granville Leveson, Lord Carysfort, married 
 my late husband’s aunt, and I used to fight my father’s battles over 
 again with him in a friendly way, though argumentative. 
 
 “ My father told me that the great mistake of his life had been 
 not valuing my mother as she deserved; that the brilliancy of his 
 career had in a great measure been due to her, and through her 
 sympathies and influences had been destined to be still better and 
 brighter. She knew Latin and Greek, and besides fluently spoke 
 French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Her performance on the 
 piano was famed in France, England, and America ; her oil paint¬ 
 ings are still a theme for admiration ; and she played the harp ex¬ 
 quisitely. Her memory of history in particular was extraordinary, 
 and her eloquence overpowering. A lady said to me, 6 Every word 
 that falls from her mouth is a jewel.’ Her soul was too great for 
 her means and her sphere. Her exertions to serve others knew no 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 87 
 
 limits. Many owed their comfort, their happiness, their existence 
 to her ; for her purposes were never small, her efforts never weary. 
 She was the amanuensis of my father while he was on the Pacific 
 station, and wrote his French and Spanish letters. He said to me, 
 when he was nominated for the Presidency of this country, that had 
 he appreciated my mother’s abilities in time she would have had 
 him made President ten years previously, ‘ for she could do any¬ 
 thing she liked.’ In every relation of life my mother was a glowing 
 example of every virtue. Her filial devotion was mentioned from the 
 pulpit. 
 
 “ As I peruse the letters of different members of my family I am 
 struck by their far-sightedness and accuracy of detail and judgment. 
 My mother daily evinced a penetration almost superhuman, and a 
 prevision that seemed prophetic. But as too little attention is often 
 paid to woman’s wit, notwithstanding the familiar phrase of 
 4 mother-wit,’ she was often compared to Cassandra at the siege of 
 Troy. I can conceive nothing more painful to human feeling than as 
 a woman to be compelled, like some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 to cry 4 Wo ! wo !’ and yet remain unheeded; and I believe that 
 life in its struggles, its future, is in tenderness veiled to woman, as a 
 rule ; and further, that so she seems meant to typify, to exemplify, 
 the warmth and intelligence, the hope and charity, at whose pure 
 founts the infant man may be nurtured, strengthened, and upheld to 
 surmount the difficulties that chiefly beset the widest sphere of 
 action—from whose purer hands he may depart winged for a double 
 mission, like Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Woman’s mission 
 is chiefly to pity, to aid, the feeble and the suffering ; and in her 
 sorrow how wide that mission may become ! History shows that, 
 for good or evil, often, as is the mother, so is the son ; and private 
 life shows too often that as is the mother for nullity, frivolity, or 
 selfishness, so is the son. Many a man who would respond on some 
 angelic mission to Beranger’s lines— 
 
 “ * Plaignezle peuple, il souffre, et tout grand homme 
 Aupres du peuple est l’envoye de Dieu’— 
 
 has surely felt and acknowledged a mother’s sacred influence. 
 
 “ I am informed that the name Ford is of purely Milesian origin, 
 and am therefore inclined to think that, as nothing has ever done 
 so, nothing ever will quench the ardour and pertinacity which seem 
 inherent in all my children, the power to struggle and to overcome, 
 and which succeeds in whatever field is open to it—in whatever the 
 hand finds to do. Let U3 hope it may be accompanied too by the 
 keen vision to see the open door, the rift in the cloud ; by the faith 
 to behold, while yet unseen, the blessings that lie buried, but ger¬ 
 minating for a greater birth, in the Isle of Saints, the Isle of the 
 West, the isle whose hope, tried and purified as silver in the fire, but 
 undimmed still, awaits the rising sun of prosperity. * To everything 
 there is a time.’ Some one, some side, must tire first; and all 
 efforts, if not relinquished, are by practice made perfect.” 
 
88 C. S. PARNELL, M.P, 
 
 The Tudors—the other branch of Charles Stewart Parnell’s ma¬ 
 ternal ancestry—have a history full of interest. They were of 
 ' Spanish origin, and afterwards settled in Wales, whence divers 
 branches of the family pushed out into positions of prominence, like 
 the line of Tudor sovereigns who swayed the destinies of England 
 so extraordinarily in their day. The first of the family who is 
 known to have appeared on the American shores was a Colonel 
 Tudor, an officer in the British army. In all probability he went 
 there with his regiment, helping to hold the colonies for the British 
 crown. After his death, his widow, a woman of high spirit, dis¬ 
 agreeing with her late husband’s relatives, boldly left them, trusting 
 to her own resources,, and with her only son John repaired to 
 Boston. Good looks have long been a noted Tudor characteristic. 
 Even Henry the Eighth, before he became bloated and disfigured by 
 sensuality, is said to have had a magnificent presence. The John 
 Tudor mentioned above did not lack the family speciality. He 
 “was noted for his beauty, grace, gentlemanliness, and accomplish¬ 
 ments.”! Probably his widowed mother had been compelled, from 
 want of means, to bring him up in the pinching school of hardship, 
 and that thus he acquired a close-fistedness foreign to the family 
 nature and habits. Certain it is that close he was, notwithstanding 
 his graces of form and manner ; so close that he contrived to amass 
 an immense fortune at a time when the British colonies in America*, 
 through lack of industries, offered but very meagre opportunities for 
 fortune-building to even the clearest commercial heads. He left a 
 son William in possession of his wealth; and this William Tudor, 
 revolting from the experiences of his early years, and as if in pro¬ 
 testation against the niggardliness so long beneath his eyes, spent 
 his money with an absolutely “imperial benevolence and gene¬ 
 rosity.” 
 
 William Tudor, who was born at Boston on the 28th March, 1750, 
 studied at Harvard College, and graduated in 1769, was a splendid 
 man, physically and morally. He had in perfection what was 
 called “the Tudor eye”—“a large, brilliant, dark-blue eye.” He 
 possessed at once the extremes of courage and tenderness, and was 
 as unselfish as he was clear-headed. He was a very accomplished 
 man, and a fine writer. In his young manhood he studied law, 
 under the celebrated John Adams ; but the study did not ossify his 
 heart. Even while still little more than a boy his chosen friends 
 were among the best and honestest of his contemporaries. While ; 
 the bloody quarrel of the North American colonies with Great 
 Britain was as yet looming in the distance, William Tudor had 
 for bosom companions only those who might be counted on to take 
 the side of their native country against the foreign crown. One of 
 these intimates was his teacher of legal lore, John Adams, who, hav¬ 
 ing discovered how niggardly John Tudor was in supplying money to 
 his student son, wrote, without the knowledge of the latter, to the 
 former, appealing to him to give William a more liberal allowance, 
 to help his advancement in life. “If your son were infected with 
 
V 
 
 C. S, PARNELL, 31.P. SO 
 
 the follies and vices so fashionable among many of the young gentle¬ 
 men of our age and country,” urged Adams, “ I would never become 
 an advocate for him, without his knowledge, as I now am, with his 
 father. I should think, the more he was restrained, the better. 
 But I know him to have a clear head, and an honest, faithful 
 heart. He is virtuous, sober, steady, industrious, and constant in 
 his office. He is as frugal as he can be in his rank and class of life, 
 without being mean. It is your peculiar felicity to have a son whose 
 behaviour and character are thus deserving.” 
 
 William Tudor was admitted to the Suffolk bar on the 27th July, 
 1772. He had but little time to acquire a name before the revolu¬ 
 tion came. He counted on his list of intimates some of the most 
 distinguished patriots of the day. There could be but one side in 
 the strife for the young lawyer, and that side was his country’s. 
 Of course he might have acted the coward’s part, and remained 
 neutral ; but he had come of a strong and daring race, and with their 
 hot blood surging in his veins he could not stand idle while others 
 were arming for the fray. He made his way to Bunker’s Hill, and, 
 as a volunteer, took part in the action. After the retreat of the 
 American insurgents from that hard-fought field, William Tudor 
 joined the army in a regular manner, and served under Generals Lee 
 and Washington, The latter made him his aide-de-camp—a fact 
 which sufficiently attests that he had distinguished himself for 
 bravery and coolness in the hour of peril. 
 
 There was a tender and romantic side to William Tudor’s nature. 
 At the very time that the insurrection began, and indeed for a con¬ 
 siderable period before that, he was ardently attached to a young 
 lady named Delia Jarvis, whose sympathies were entirely with the 
 royalists. He spent seven years in striving to induce her to accept 
 him. Mrs. Parnell writes of her : 
 
 “ She had romantic ideas of feminine character, which she always 
 maintained. Her strongly aesthetic tastes led her to prefer courtly 
 circles ; and her gentle, indulgent disposition to deprecate wars, and 
 long for a compromise. Nevertheless she was considered to be a 
 loyalist, and showed considerable spirit as such. For instance, 
 when Boston opinion was all aflame about the tea question she gave 
 a tea-party. Whoever used this herb was considered a foe to the 
 country, and a rigid inquisition and vigilance were maintained to 
 prevent its use. A sprig of tea,” Mrs. Parnell continues, “ might be 
 our national emblem, for its familiar shape involved then a principle 
 soon to be combated by open war.” 
 
 The young lady’s loyalist feelings, however, did not always go un¬ 
 hurt. In her son William’s Life of Otis the following passage 
 referring to her occurs :— 
 
 “ After the battle [of Bunker’s Hill], a young person living in 
 Boston, possessed of very keen and generous feelings, bordering a 
 little perhaps on the romantic, as was natural to her age, sex, and 
 lively imagination, finding that many of the wounded [American] 
 troops brought over from the field of action were carried by her re- 
 
90 C. S. PARNI1L, M.P. 
 
 sidence, mixed a quantity of refreshing beverage, and, with a female 
 domestic by her side, stood at the door and offered it to the sufferers 
 as they were borne along, burning with fever and parched with thirst. 
 Several of these, grateful for her kindness, gave her, as they thought, 
 consolation, by assuring her of the destruction of [the British]. 
 One young officer said, ‘ Never mind it, my brave youDg lady ; we 
 have peppered ’em well, depend on it !’ Her dearest feelings were 
 thus unintentionally lacerated, while she was pouring oil and wine 
 into their wounds. 5 ' 
 
 Courting this lady under the circumstances was no easy task for 
 one whom, while her sympathies went out to him as a man, her pre¬ 
 judices taught her to regard as a criminal because of his havirg 
 become “a rebel to his sovereign.” Court her, however, and persist¬ 
 ently too, he did. He kept up a correspondence with her during the 
 war, as full as opportunity permitted, usually beginning his long 
 letters with “My fair loyalist,” and ending them with “Your de¬ 
 voted rebel”—a mode of address calculated to laugh her prejudices 
 away. Nor was he satisfied to confine himself to epistolary pleadings. 
 In spite of dangers and difficulties he contrived to meet her. In 
 Drake’s “ Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex” the following 
 passage occurs :— 
 
 “ His courtship of the lady who afterwards became his wife was 
 prosecuted under very romantic circumstances. By the hostilities 
 which had broken out he was separated from the object of his affec¬ 
 tions, who was residing on Noddles Island (East Boston) in the 
 family of Henry Howell Williams. The British fleet which lay off 
 the island rendered it dangerous to approach it in a boat. A boyish 
 acquisition was now of use to the gallant colonel. He was an excel¬ 
 lent swimmer. Tying his clothes in a bundle on his head, he, like 
 another Leander, swam the strait between the island and the main, 
 paid his visit, and returned the way he came. It is related of 
 Colonel Tudor that when a boy, being on a visit aboard an English 
 line of-battle ship in Boston harbour, the conversation turned on 
 swimming. Tudor proposed to jump from the taffrail rail—which 
 in ships of that time was at a considerable height from the water—if 
 anyone would do the same. A sailor accepted the challenge. The 
 boy took the leap, but the man was afraid to follow.” 
 
 In the end the colonel’s wooing prospered. The most bigoted 
 “fair loyalist” that ever was could not go on for years receiving 
 letters signed “your devoted rebel” from a man to whom she was 
 really attached without suffering a considerable abatement of her 
 devotion to her sovereign. Further, Miss Jarvis had an innate 
 horror of war; and it wa3 but natural that during the colonel’s 
 long absence she should torture herself with dreadful imaginings of 
 what might happen to him at any moment. So she put an end to 
 her torments by deserting from the royalists, and, going over to the 
 enemy’s camp, joined her life and fortunes with Colonel Tudor’s. 
 
 Honours showered on Colonel William. He was appointed Judge- 
 Advocate-General of Washington’s army, and held a military posi- 
 
C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 
 
 91 
 
 tion equal to that of general. He presided over the courts-martial 
 at Cambridge after Washington’s arrival there. In hi3 position of 
 Judge-Advocate-General, his legal training and abilities gave him 
 great advantages over mere military men ; and these he employed 
 with success in defence of many an accused one. In especial, a 
 Colonel Henley, who was charged with unmilitary conduct towards 
 British prisoners in his care, had reason to be grateful to the Advo¬ 
 cate-General. We read : “ Henley owed hi3 acquittal mainly to the 
 exertions of Colonel Tudor in his behalf. The evidence showed 
 that the prisoner had acted under great provocation ; but what most 
 influenced the result was the startling testimony adduced of the 
 mutinous spirit prevalent among the British soldiers.” 
 
 When the war was over, and the colonel’s sword sheathed, he re¬ 
 turned to Boston, and to the practice of his profession, wherein he 
 achieved a reputation as “an eminent counsellor.” He became a 
 member of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, and after¬ 
 wards of the Senate. He held the high office of Secretary of State 
 in 1809 and 1810. He was appointed vice-president of the Cincin¬ 
 nati of Massachusetts in 1816, and was one of the founders of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose “Collections” appears an 
 extended memoir of him. He was an elegant and a spirited public 
 speaker, and his talents in this line, as in others, were frequently 
 drawn on by hi3 fellow-citizens of Boston. He paid a visit to Europe 
 and saw the state of Ireland with his own eyes. Mrs. Parnell says 
 of him : “I have many charming letters of my grandfather, in one 
 of which he forcibly condemns from Ireland the British government 
 there. His letters are a wonderful exemplification of his excellence 
 and attractiveness as a father, son, and husband. He begins one 
 letter to his wife with * My truest friend ;* and ends it, ‘ I must 
 cease to feel and to reflect ere I cease to love and to admire you/ 
 John Adams and Judge Tudor kept up a long and interesting cor¬ 
 respondence—a very valuable one, being especially on political sub¬ 
 jects of the day. In John Adams’s works, edited by a descendant 
 of his, his letters to Judge Tudor are published.” The judge died 
 on the 8fch July, 1819. 
 
 “ Miss Peabody, the sister of Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote a 
 beautiful account of my grandmother,” Mrs. Parnell says. “In it 
 she mentions my grandmother’s resolution to do or say something to 
 contribute to the happiness of each one she daily met; and her learn¬ 
 ing Spanish at the age of seventy. Through her letters in Spanish 
 she procured from General Tacon the monopoly of the ice-trade in 
 Cuba for her son Frederic. She read, wrote, and mended fine lace, 
 without spectacles, to ninety-two years of age. Her poetry was very 
 tine. One day, my mother, coming in with the Washington Na¬ 
 tional Intelligencer , said, * I have found a rare thing—a fine piece of 
 poetry in the newspaper,’ and read out, to, my grandmother’s sur¬ 
 prise, a piece by herself on a Fourth of July oration by John Quincy 
 Adams at the Capitol, where several old revolutionary soldiers were 
 present. My mother was delighted to learn that her own mother 
 
92 C. S. PARNELL, LI.P. 
 
 wrote it. The latter was descended from some of the adventurous 
 Puritans who sought this shelter, and the name Delia was originally 
 Deliverance. She is mentioned in Comte de Segur’s memoirs. Her 
 home in Boston, wherein her two beautiful and accomplished daugh¬ 
 ters did the honours, was the rendezvous of all the French officers 
 stationed near. She addressed some fine verses in French to Marie 
 Antoinette, which were acknowledged by the latter. 
 
 “ Of her two daughters, Emma married Robert Hallowell Gardiner, 
 of Oaklands, Gardiner, Maine; and Delia married Commodore 
 Charles Stewart, of the United States navy. Emma had the 
 splendid Tudor eye, and her mother’s delicate complexion, auburn 
 hair, and exquisite figure. Delia, my mother, had the JN orman 
 combination of fine, curling, coal-black hair, blue eyes, and a com¬ 
 plexion like a tinted rose-leaf. She was tall, and remarkable for 
 fine-cut regular features, symmetry, grace, and a dignity and ele¬ 
 gance of carriage that were truly regal.” 
 
 Besides his two daughters, judge Tudor left two sons, William 
 and Frederic, both very remarkable men. William, the eldest, had 
 a strongly intellectual bent of nature. While almost an infant he 
 had imbibed his mother’s horror of war, and if anyone sang in his 
 presence the once popular song, “ Oh, what a glorious thing’s a 
 battle ! drums a-beating, colours flying,” he would burst out 
 a-sobbing. Ordinarily, however, he was a bright-witted and lively 
 little boy. When about three years of age he climbed on to the 
 table after a dinner-party, and was engaged in draining the wine¬ 
 glasses when the black butler of the family discovered him. To 
 disarm the negro’s wrath the little fellow seized a glass and cried, 
 “Your health, Mr. Pompey !” so much in the fashion of his elders 
 that the butler did no more than grin. From Blake’s and Drake’s 
 (American) Biographical Dictionaries the following memoir of Wil¬ 
 liam Tudor has been compiled :— 
 
 “ Tudor, William, scholar and diplomatist, was born at Boston, 
 the 28th of January, 1779. He graduated at Harvard College with 
 distinguished honour in 1796 ; and soon after visited Europe for the 
 improvement of his mind. He was an observant traveller, and 
 treasured up for future use a vast and varied fund of information 
 and anecdote. He returned to his native country with an ardent 
 desire for the improvement of his fellow-citizens in arts and litera¬ 
 ture. He was the projector and first editor of the North American 
 Review ”—the same distinguished periodical in the April 1880 num¬ 
 ber of which appears his relative Charles Stewart Parnell’s splen¬ 
 did paper on the Irish land question—“which Review has since be¬ 
 come identified with the best literature of our country. In what¬ 
 ever Mr. Tudor undertook he had a single eye to the intellectual 
 advancement of his countrymen. No man in public life was ever more 
 distinguished. When a member of the legislature of Massachusetts, 
 he proposed many plans in aid of his favourite object; but they met 
 with opposition from those who, though they respected his motives, 
 considered him a visionary. Several of his projects have, however. 
 

 UH | | U|liV| I ) (I J r 
 
 C. S. PARNELL, M.P. 93 
 
 since been accomplished, and m the very manner that he first 
 suggested. For two years he wrote all the first pages of the North 
 American Reyiew himself. According to himself, he wrote the whole 
 of the first number, even to the notices, &c., in it. *He had pre¬ 
 viously aided in founding the Anthology Club, publishing his Euro¬ 
 pean Letters in their magazine, the Monthly Anthology , begun in 
 November, 1803, continued until 1811, and supported by the best pens 
 in Boston. In November 1805 he founded the ice-traffic in tropical 
 climes as the agent of his brother Frederic, which has grown to be 
 an important branch of commerce ; and he was afterwards engaged 
 in other commercial transactions in Europe requiring ability and ad¬ 
 dress. Mr. Tudor was the originator of the present Bunker’s Hill 
 monument, and one of the founders of the Bjston Athenaeum in 
 1807. In 1823 he was named consul at Lima, Peru ; 
 and in 1S27 was appointed charge d’affaires at the court 
 of Brazil, where he negotiated a treaty, the last of his 
 public works. Mr. Tudor acquired the personal affection of 
 the emperor, and the respect and admiration of the corps diplo¬ 
 matique. His character as a literary] man and an accomplished 
 j gentleman had preceded him; and it was well observed that his 
 country was honoured in such a representative. Besides his contri¬ 
 butions to several periodicals, and his critiques in the North Ameri¬ 
 can Review , he published ‘A Discourse before the Humane Society,’ 
 1817 ; ‘ Letters on the Eastern States,’ 1820 ; * Miscellaneous,’ 
 1821; ‘Life of James Otis,’ 1823 ; ‘Gebel Teir,’ 1828. He died at 
 Bio Janeiro, the 9th of March, 1830.” He was only in his fifty- 
 fourth year then ; and he succumbed to an illness which had its 
 origin a great many years before in an act of kindly humanity, when, 
 travelling in Germany, and seeing a soldier’s wife with her infant on 
 the outside of the coach at night in a storm of rain, he gave his own 
 inside place to the poor woman and child, and took her outside one 
 himself. The climax of his disease was brought about by laborious 
 journeys, on foot as well as on horseback, into the wild and moun¬ 
 tainous interior of Brazil. Mrs. Parnell writes of him :— 
 
 “Lord Ponsonby, one of his colleagues at the court of Dom Pedro 
 the First, said that such was my uncle William Tudor's humane 
 and judicious advice, and such the influence he exerted over the 
 emperor, who consulted him on all occasions, that had he lived the 
 emperor never would have lost his throne. A succeeding consul 
 told me that my uncle William’s beauty and nobility of form and 
 feature made a never forgotten impression on him. He thought he 
 had never seen anyone so handsome. He resembled my mother. 
 This consul also related to me the first act of my uncle on coming 
 aboard the ship where this future consul was—an act which in its 
 simplicity and greatness seemed fitly to accompany his appearance. 
 The mate of the vessel had died on board, leaving his widow and 
 orphaned children at Callao, Peru. My uncle spontaneously and 
 immediately gave them a home in his house, until they could be 
 comfortably sent to their own home and friends. How few consuls 
 
 
thus treat their exiled countrymen ! I remember the terrible grief 
 and desolation cf my mother’s heart and home when the news of his 
 death reached us at Washington. The diplomatic corps there called 
 to condole with my poor mother. Congress had his very remark¬ 
 able diplomatic correspondence published—for use and enjoyment 
 both.”' 
 
 Of her uncle, Frederic Tudor, brother of the William above 
 noticed, and whose genius lay more in the commercial line, Mrs. 
 Parnell supplies the information subjoined :— 
 
 “Through gigantic endeavours, though often frustrated,, he suc¬ 
 ceeded in restoring his family fortunes and the prestige of the Tudor 3 
 for wealth. He discovered how to preserve ice for long journeys, 
 and conceived the idea that the chief staple cf New England—viz,, 
 ice—should be a chief source of profit; and he gathered a harvest 
 of precious metal from frozen waters. The ice he sent, especially to 
 the East Indies, has preserved many a life. He received specially 
 handsome acknowledgments of his services from the East Indies. 
 
 “Some of the agents in the West Indies not at first succeeding, 
 he chartered a vessel, freighted it with ice, and sailed in it himself 
 to the West Indies. I have seen a letter written then by his tender 
 and terrified mother, expressing her fears lest the ice should melt on 
 the voyage and the vessel be capsized. But he went; and, like the 
 farmer in the fable, 
 ness himself. 
 
 “ He was remarkable for his wit and for his strong character, 
 which made him, while very droll, very incisive in his speech, and 
 very forcible in his views. He had the peculiar beauty of the family 
 then—black hair, blue eyes, affine figure, a high broad forehead, and 
 regular features. At his fine place at Nahant he made prize peaches 
 grow on a rock just over the sea, and discovered how to p* event 
 them being injured by the salt in the atmosphere while they received 
 the full advantage of the air. His letters are very entertaining. So 
 also are the letters of his sister, my aunt Emma. I remember parti¬ 
 cularly her poetical expressions ; and a line in one of her letters, 
 while I was a child, when, describing a place she was in, she wrote, 
 
 ‘ The frogs croak a bass to the whistling wind.’ ** 
 
 immediately prospered by attending to his busi* 
 
 [the end.] 
 
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