'On the evening of the 27th I had a long conference with Hartington and Spencer, in which I "worked" Dickson much. Before this I had had the third meeting of my Commission, and then a public meeting in connection with the Dublin Ladies' Central Association, a body dealing with the Housing of the Working Classes. On the morning of May 28th Spencer came into my bedroom before eight o'clock, and told me that Hartington was very ill, suffering from sleeplessness and fever, and that it would be quite impossible for him to make his Belfast speech.... Dickson soon came to the Viceregal Lodge, and earnestly begged me to go to Belfast in Hartington's place, but under the circumstances I felt that it was impossible that I should do so, although he promised me that a special train should be waiting at the last moment if I would change my mind. 'I received this day a letter from Cardinal Manning strongly urging that Chamberlain, Lefevre, and I, should stay in. "If you and the like of you leave the Whigs, they will fall back and unite in resisting you. So long as you are in contact with them, they will yield to reason. These are the thoughts of an Old Testament Radical." But the Old Testament Radical went on to make proposals to me with regard to the Roman Catholic vote in Chelsea which would have astonished the Old Testament prophets. 'Another letter which I received this day was from O'Shea about Parnell's opinions on the Coercion Bill, but it is so obscure that I can make nothing of it. It was on a suggestion of Lefevre's with regard to bringing the Coercion Bill into force only by "proclamation." It shows, however, if O'Shea is to be believed, that Parnell was willing to accept a coercion measure of some kind, or, at all events, to haggle about its terms, if publicly resisting it as a whole.