people he undertook to go out and discover the state of affairs, and exulted in the fact that he brought them back word that the conflict took place in a cabbage garden—a phrase which stuck. I could not refrain from telling him that if he rejoiced in disparaging a generous gentleman, he ought to exhibit the sentiment somewhere else than among that gentleman's most intimate friends. Dillon whispered to me during the dinner, that he could not invite M'Gee, as most of the men present, since his Wexford speech, would walk out of the room if he came into it. M'Gee, who has seen Dillon, quite underrates the intensity of wrath he has excited. In a note to-day he treats it as a joke, parodying the "Biglow Papers":—
"John B.
Dillon, he
Cannot put up with D'Arcy M'Gee."
Next day I had a long tête-à-tête with Dillon. He tells me there is a conspiracy in Ireland at present (dit Fenian), which has caught many of the ex-clubmen. It is entirely promoted by James Stephens, whom I would know as a man who joined O'Brien at Ballingarry. He had come to Dillon at the outset, and asked his assistance, but Dillon regarded his project as utterly futile, and declined. I suggested that the large number of Irish officers trained in the American War, gave Irish conspiracy a new element of strength. Yes, he said, but they could not come into Ireland without passing British sentinels, who would close the door on the first serious alarm. The conspiracy had found favour in America, I said, judging by the Irish -American papers which I sometimes saw. Yes, he said, favour, but not confidence; there was at that moment an agent in Dublin sent over to ascertain what reality there was in the representations sent across the Atlantic by Stephens. The conspirators were honest, but not competent to such a task, and no serious result was probable, or indeed possible. Fenianism did not surprise me at all.
England inquired, and in a like case, had always inquired, who kindled the sedition? As well inquire who boiled the smoking torrents that burst from a German spa. Men may construct pipes and reservoirs to regulate the current, but the
