He took it into his head to go and ask a subscription of the Duchess of Kent, mother to our Queen. He was received kindly by the Duchess, and the Princess Victoria was allowed to be present at the conversation. Father Spencer spoke for some time about the lamentable state of England, on account of its religious divisions; he gave a short account of his own conversion, and wound up by putting forward the claims of the Catholic Church to the obedience of all Christians, as there ought to be but one fold under one shepherd. It may be said that he formed a very favourable opinion of the Princess from this meeting; he said once, when relating the story: "I considered the Princess very sensible and thoughtful. She listened with great attention to everything I said, and maintained a respectful silence, because she sat beside her mother. I had great hopes of her then, and so far they have not been disappointed. I hope ye will all pray for her, and we may one day have the pleasure of seeing her a Catholic." This he said in 1863, and then he was firmly convinced that the Duchess herself had died a Catholic. He returned soon to his mission in West Bromwich, and {230} writes, in a letter to Mr. Phillipps: "I had a project in my head when I returned, more extensive than any that filled it of late. That is, going to Dublin to see if there I might find some unknown mine out of which I could draw what I want for Dudley. This soon grew into the thought of a tour round Ireland, and the subject of collecting alms for Dudley soon began to look trivial and secondary. I could hardly contain myself at the thoughts of preaching all over Ireland the conversion of England, and exhorting them all to forget their earthly miseries in the view of our spiritual ones, and to begin to retaliate the evils they have endured in the way of the true Christian, not by violent opposition, but by rendering good a thousandfold, or rather beyond reckoning." This scheme was put off for some time, by the advice of the Rev. Mr. Martyn, who seems to have been his director.