The Phoenix Park tragedy confirmed many persons in the belief that Forster had been right, and the rest of the Government wrong, with regard to Irish policy. In Yorkshire we felt keenly on the subject, and in the _Leeds Mercury_ I lost no opportunity of vindicating my friend from the attacks which a section of the advanced Radicals, who claimed Mr. Chamberlain as their leader, made upon him. The result was to bring about a strained state of the relations between myself and the official leaders of the Liberal party. Leeds had given the Government its most signal victory in the General Election of 1880. It was felt in the Cabinet to be a serious thing that the _Leeds Mercury_, and with it no inconsiderable section of the Liberal electors, regarded Mr. Forster's supersession with indignation, and by some influential member of the Government a proposal was made to crush the _Mercury_, and prove that it did not really represent Liberal opinion in Leeds, by convening a meeting of the Liberal Association for the purpose of expressing confidence in the Irish policy of the Ministry. It was an absurd device, and it failed, as it deserved to do. Although we were very angry at the treatment which Mr. Forster had received, we were perfectly loyal to Liberal principles and to the leadership of Mr. Gladstone. There was no need, therefore, to ask us to testify to our confidence in Ministers. But the men who had succeeded in driving Mr. Forster from office desired to complete their work by bringing his defenders into open contempt, and they thought that they would accomplish this by means of a meeting of Liberal electors in Leeds which should prove to the world that the editor of the _Leeds Mercury_ represented nobody but himself in his championship of Forster's cause.