If O'Connell had been at Lord John's side at that juncture, England might have sent a practical message of good-will to Ireland instead of falling back on the old policy of coercion. O'Connell had learnt to trust Russell--as far, at least, as it was possible for a leader of the Irish people to trust a Whig statesman--and Russell, on the other hand, was beginning to understand not merely O'Connell, but the forces which lay behind him, and which rendered him, quite apart from his own eloquence and gifts, powerful. Unfortunately, the Liberator was by this time broken in health, and the Young Ireland party were already in revolt against his authority, a circumstance which, in itself, filled the Premier with misgivings, and led him to give way, however reluctantly, to the demand of the viceroy for repressive measures. Lord John was, in fact, only too well aware that force was no remedy. He wished, as much as O'Connell, to root up the causes which produced crime. Young Ireland, however, seemed determined to kick over the traces at the very time when the Liberator was inducing the Whigs to look at the question in a practical manner. Lord John knew, to borrow his own expression, that the 'armoury of penal legislation was full of the weapons of past battles, and yet the victory of order and peace had not been gained.' The Liberal party set its face against coercion in any shape or form, and the Government withdrew a proposal which they ought never to have introduced. This course had scarcely been taken when a new and terrible complication of the social problem in Ireland arose. [Sidenote: THE IRISH FAMINE]