When Lowell was earnestly opposing the suicidal course of the South before the actual outbreak of the war for the Union, secession being then the shibboleth, he took Scotland and Ireland in their relation to Great Britain for parallel historic instances in support of his position. “There is no such antipathy,” he wrote, “between the North and the South as men ambitious of a consideration in the new republic, which their talents and character have failed to secure them in the old, would fain call into existence by asserting that it exists. The misunderstanding and dislike between them is not so great as they were within living memory between England and Scotland, as they are now between England and Ireland. There is no difference of race, language, or religion. Yet, after a dissatisfaction of near a century and two rebellions, there is no part of the British dominion more loyal than Scotland, no British subjects who would be more loath to part with the substantial advantages of their imperial connection than the Scotch; and even in Ireland, after a longer and more deadly feud, there is no sane man who would consent to see his country irrevocably cut off from power and consideration to obtain an independence which would be nothing but Donnybrook Fair multiplied by every city, town, and village in the island. The same considerations of policy and advantage, which render the union of Scotland and Ireland with England a necessity, apply with even more force to the several States of our Union.”[79] When, therefore, Lowell found himself in England as the representative of the United States at a period when the chronic irritation between England and Ireland was at an acute stage through the operation of the so-called coercion act, it is not surprising that be should take a very lively interest in affairs. As a part of his diplomatic duty, he kept his government informed not so much of the facts which were the news of the day, as of the interpretation to be put upon the political situation. Accordingly, on 7 January, 1881, he wrote to Mr. Evarts, then Secretary of State:--