who were left at home. The exiles throve in their new land--a fresh evidence, if they needed more, that English domination had been the cause of their miseries. They multiplied, and became a factor in American political life. They fought, and fought well, in the American Civil War. When the Civil War was over, they hoped for a war with England, and tried to kindle it in Canada. The 'Alabama' question having been settled peacefully, they failed in their immediate purpose; but none the less they were animated with an all-pervading purpose of revenge; and there were many thousands of them who had escaped the Southern bullets who were ready for any desperate adventure. An invading force was to cross the Atlantic, while Ireland organised itself in secret societies to receive them as it did to receive the French in 1797. Chester Castle and the Fenian rebellion of 1867 are not yet forgotten even in these days of short memories and excited hopes. The rising was abortive. It failed, as Irish rebellions have so often failed, because the Irish people trusted in their numbers and neglected to make serious preparations. The American general who came over to take the command had been told that he would find ten thousand men drilled and armed. He did not find five hundred, and he left the enterprise in contempt. The scattered risings which followed were easily suppressed, and were suppressed with gentleness. The exhortation of a leading Liberal journal to make an example of the rebels in the field, because executions afterwards were inconvenient, was happily not attended to. But the leniency with which the leading insurgents were treated was construed into a confession of weakness. The rebellious spirit was fed from America, and detached acts of violence, attempted rescues of prisoners, and blowing up of gaols showed that Ireland was as unsubdued as ever. The great Liberal champion saw the occasion which he required. The Clerkenwell explosion, he said, had brought the Irish question within the range of practical politics, and in this extraordinary acknowledgment invited an inflammable people to persevere in outrage if they desired to secure their rights. He declared in a memorable speech that the cause of Irish wretchedness had been Protestant Ascendency. Protestant Ascendency was the Irish upas-tree, with its three branches, the Church, the land, and the education. The deadly growth once cut down, the animosity would end, and the English lion and the Irish lamb would lie down together in peace. That to disarm the garrison was a likely mode of reconciling an unwilling people to a connection which they detest, was an expectation not in accordance with general human experience; still less when it was confessedly recommended as a reward of insurrection. But the Irish question was ingeniously selected as a counterstroke to Disraeli's Reform Bill. Had Disraeli but left Reform to its owners the Liberals would have been provided with work at home and