Note 1 — Chapter XXVIII · A KING AT BAY

The conversations with O'Brien and Dillon in France and the correspondence which followed were concerned with the attitude of the Irish Party towards the details of the Home Rule Bill to be introduced when the Liberals came into power. Mr. Justin McCarthy had been elected leader of the party, but Parnell insisted on his traditional right to a predominant voice in its decisions. At the beginning of 1891 there were anxious discussions about Gladstone's intentions as to the number of Irish Members to be retained at Westminster and as to the basis of a public declaration of Liberal policy. The proposals made to him were not satisfactory either to Parnell's political judgment or to his amour propre. They came to nothing, however, and both O'Brien and Dillon were arrested on their return to Ireland and put "out of the way for a bit," as Parnell said. He complained of the "depressing effect" these two colleagues had upon him; it was "so hard to keep them to the difficulties of the moment while they were so eagerly passing on the troubles of to-morrow."