When Lord Cowper, the Irish Viceroy, under the influence of the Chief Secretary, Mr. Forster, represented to Mr. Gladstone in the early autumn of 1880 the necessity of coercive measures for the government of Ireland, he found the Prime Minister profoundly opposed to departure from the ordinary law. The Viceroy was pressed to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act by every agent, every landlord, every magistrate in the country. The number of outrages against life and property had increased _pari passu_ with the number of evictions. The Land League, which had been formed, under the presidency of Parnell, the preceding year, had taken up the cause of the evicted tenants and, by establishing the elaborate system of persecution, named after its first victim, Lord Mayo's English agent, Captain Boycott, rendered it almost impossible to let farms from which a tenant had been evicted. When, on September 25, Lord Mountmorres, a poor man with a small estate, who could really not afford to reduce his rents, was murdered, such was the popular detestation of the murdered man that the owner of the nearest house refused shelter to the corpse, no hearse could be obtained to convey it to the grave, and the family had to fly to England. The maiming of cattle, a {166} method of reprisal constantly adopted by evicted tenants, further contributed to inflame English opinion, both in and out of Ireland, against the Nationalist party, who were held responsible by the man in the street for everything that was going on. Mr. Bright was still more opposed than Mr. Gladstone to the repeal of the Habeas Corpus, and so was Mr. Chamberlain, who had joined the Government as President of the Board of Trade. Before giving way to Mr. Forster, the Cabinet determined to use the ordinary methods of law, and prosecuted the heads of the Land League for "conspiring to prevent the payment of rent, resist the process of eviction, and obstruct the letting of surrendered farms." The public announcement of the prosecution in no way intimidated the Land League. The prosecution, although announced on November 3, did not, on account of legal delays, begin until after Christmas. Disorder at once became more rampant and outrages more frequent. On November 23, Cowper wrote again to Mr. Gladstone, threatening his resignation in the following January, if he were not given fuller powers. On December 12, he made his last appeal, urging that Parliament should be immediately summoned. Mr. Gladstone yielded the very day before the trial of the Land League began in Dublin, and summoned Parliament for January 6, 1881.