Forster, and it seems that the Cabinet was also put in possession of Mr. Parnell’s views. Mr. Forster was not of opinion that they justified his release. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke thought that they displayed a reasonable spirit which would justify a new departure of conciliation in Irish policy. Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Davitt, and the other suspects were therefore released, and Lord Cowper, the Irish Viceroy, and Mr. Forster resigned office. Mr. Forster was of opinion that Mr. Parnell should have been compelled to promise publicly not to resist the law, or failing that, that a stronger Coercion Act should have been passed before he was set at liberty. Lord Spencer was appointed to succeed Lord Cowper, and Lord Frederick Cavendish succeeded Mr. Forster as Chief Secretary. On the 6th of May, within forty-eight hours of their appointment, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, the Under-secretary for Ireland, were butchered by a band of assassins in broad daylight in the Phœnix Park, Dublin. Mr. Forster, in fact, had allowed a secret society of assassins, calling themselves “Invincibles,” to organise itself at his own doors, whilst he was scouring the country far and wide to arrest and imprison the patriotic but respectable _bourgeoisie_ of Ireland as suspects. In his speech condemning the release of the suspects, whilst he maintained that Ireland was not yet quiet, he had declared that the country was quieter than it had been, that the Land League was crushed, and boycotting checked! He had never suspected that the place of the Land League had been taken by a secret society of desperadoes called the “Invincibles” and that assassination was to be substituted for boycotting. His administration had been indeed singularly ineffective. With power in his hands, as absolute as that of a Russian Minister of Police, he seems never to have suspected the existence of the band of murderers who had organised themselves in Dublin, and who had dogged his own steps in sight of the detectives who watched over him day after day seeking for a chance of slaying him. This tragic event upset the scheme for “a new departure,” which Mr. Chamberlain had induced the Government to essay. Though Englishmen behaved with great calmness and self-restraint after the first shock of horror which the Phœnix Park murders sent through the nation had passed away, they were resolved to offer no more concessions to Ireland till the Government took fresh powers for enforcing law and suppressing outrages. Mr. Gladstone interpreted the national will accurately when he determined not to withdraw the conciliatory portion of his Irish programme. But he recast his plans, and gave his coercive precedence over his remedial measures. [Illustration: LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH. (_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]