Mr. Thompson felt quite proud of the victory he fancied he had gained over the League. But he soon discovered that his triumph was less complete than he had at first imagined. One day, in going round the farm, he noticed that the hay was ready to cut. The same evening he told four men, who usually worked for him, to take their scythes the next morning and commence mowing. The men curtly refused, saying that the League had placarded in the village a prohibition against working on the land, and they dared not disobey. They were immediately dismissed. Only it was equally necessary to send away all the other farm-labourers, for none of them were more docile. He endeavoured to procure substitutes from the neighbouring villages by offering two or three times the usual wages; it was impossible to find a single one. A short time before these events some of the victims of the League had recognised that one cause of their weakness was their isolation. They agreed that the best means of resistance would be to borrow some of its methods of procedure. _Similia, similibus!_ Resistance, although impossible to one man, could be made efficacious if they organised themselves--all the more so, because many of the people who now submitted would have resisted had they been sure of being supported. They therefore formed, under the name of the Cork Defence Union, an association, which was intended to unite all opponents of the League, and to paralyse by every possible means its most offensive measure, _i.e._ boycotting. The most important persons in the county, the Earl of Bandon and Viscount Doneraile, were named president and vice-president. Numerous adherents joined from all sides, and soon the Anti-league had command of sufficient resources to enter upon a campaign. In order to bring those to reason whom the Leaguers of the neighbourhood found refractory, they had adopted two very efficacious methods. They forbade the blacksmiths to shoe the horses, and the owners of machines to thresh the harvest of those whom they had interdicted. The association imported machines and portable forges, which, protected by a strong escort of constables and managed by picked men, scoured the country and worked in spite of all attempts to break them. For the first time they succeeded in counteracting the League.