The tremendous enthusiasm evoked by Mr. Bonar Law's pledge of support to Ulster, and by Sir Edward Carson's announcement that they in Ulster "would shortly challenge the Government to interfere with them if they dared, and would with equanimity await the result," was a sufficient proof, if proof were needed, that the intention of the Ulstermen to offer forcible resistance to Home Rule had the whole-hearted sympathy and approval of the entire Unionist party in Great Britain, whose representatives from every corner of the country were assembled at Blenheim. Liberals hoped and believed that this promise of support for the "rebellious" attitude of Ulster would alienate British opinion from the Unionist party. The supporters of the Government in the Press daily proclaimed that it was doing so. When Parliament adjourned for the summer recess, at the beginning of what journalists call "the silly season," Mr. Churchill published two letters to a constituent in Scotland which were intended to be a crushing indictment both of Ulster and of her sympathisers in Great Britain. The Ulster menace was in his eyes nothing but "melodramatic stuff," and he sneeringly suggested that the Unionist leaders would be "unspeakably shocked and frightened" if anything came of their "foolish and wicked words." The letter was lengthy, and contained some telling phrases such as Mr. Churchill has always been skilful in coining; but the "turgid homily--a mixture of sophistry, insult, and menace," as _The Times_ not unfairly described it, was less effective than the terse and simple rejoinder in which Mr. Bonar Law pointed out that Mr. Churchill's onslaught wounded his father's memory more deeply than it touched his living opponents, since Lord Randolph's "incitement" of Ulster was at a time when Ulster could not be cast out from the Union without the consent of the British electors.