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mission
of the best and wisest amongst Irishmen, with some of our highest
English judges added, sit solemnly to hear all complaints, and let us
honestly legislate, not for the punishment of the discontented, but to
remove the causes of the discontent. It is not the Fenians who have
depopulated Ireland's strength and increased her misery. It is not the
Fenians who have evicted tenants by the score. It is not the Fenians
who have checked cultivation. Those who have caused the wrong at least
should frame the remedy."[110]

[Footnote 110: _National Reformer_, October 20.]

Then came November and the sentence of death upon the four men who had
taken part in the rescue of Deasy and Kelly at Manchester. Despite
the bitter weather that followed, thousands of people assembled at
Clerkenwell Green to memorialize the Government to pardon the condemned
men. Mr Bradlaugh spoke at the meetings held there, and at Cambridge
Hall, Newman Street. But such meetings were of no avail. Englishmen
were panic-stricken, and sought to protect their own lives by taking
other people's. Eloquence, justice, right are pointless weapons when
used to combat blind fear.

Hard upon the "Manchester Sacrifice"--December 13th--followed the
Clerkenwell explosion, by which four persons were killed and about
forty men, women, and children were injured, in a mad attempt to blow
up Clerkenwell Prison in order to rescue Burke and Casey, who were then
on their trial.

This dastardly crime was a shock to all true friends of Ireland, just
as the crime of the Ph[oe]nix Park murders was fourteen years later. Mr
Bradlaugh wrote in the _National Reformer_ a most earnest and pathetic
denunciation of the outrage. He wrote it with the consciousness that he
might lose many friends by the declaration that he had been "and even
yet am favourable to the Irish Cause, which will be regarded by a large
majority as most intimately connected with this fearfully mad crime."
The Committee of the Irish Republican Brotherhood also, I believe,
hastened to protest against and repudiate the outrage.

In the same issue of his paper, Mr Bradlaugh had an article on the
Irish Crisis, in which he laid stress upon his opinion that "it is
utterly impossible to hope for improvement in the general condition
of Ireland until the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland are
completely altered." In January 1868 he published an essay on "the
Irish Question," which he afterwards issued as a pamphlet.[111] In
this he dealt with four methods which had been put forward as giving
a "fair prospect of solution for the Irish difficulty." These were
(1) Separation of Ireland from England: the people deciding their
own form of government by vote; (2) "Stamping out" the rebellious
spirit by force; (3) A Commission of Inquiry into Irish grievances
having extensive powers of amnesty, to act immediately, and to
be followed by the redressal of all _bona fide_ grievances; (4)
Political enfranchisement of Ireland, or a separate legislature. The
first two methods, which he discussed at some length, he rejected
as "impracticable and objectionable"; the third course he favoured
strongly; and the main difficulty to the fourth seems to have been
the existing suffrage. A separate legislature, he observed, had been
advocated by "some very thoughtful writers, some able politicians,
and some men of extraordinary genius." He wound up his essay with
an appeal--an appeal to the Government and an appeal to the Irish
Republican party. To both he pleaded for "forbearance, for mercy, for
humanity." The Irish Republican party he specially and in most eloquent
language entreated to "repress all violence--to check all physical
vengeance."

[Footnote 111: When he republished this as a pamphlet it was read by Mr
Gladstone, who wrote to him the following autograph letter:--

 "11 CARLTON TERRACE,
 _July 17, 1868._

 "DEAR SIR,--I have read your pamphlet with much interest, and
 with many important parts of it I cordially agree.--I remain, Dear
 Sir, yours very faithfully and obediently,

 W. E. GLADSTONE.

 "Mr C. BRADLAUGH."

This letter is still in my possession.]

Ireland was now more than ever the subject of Mr Bradlaugh's advocacy,
and in connection with it there occurred on the 17th of January (1868)
a rather curious incident. A gentleman--perhaps I ought not to mention
his name--who was a correspondent and friend of my father's, belonged
to a Quaker family, and was at the period of which I write a member
of the Society of Friends, although he subsequently resigned his
membership. He belonged also to a discussion society connected with
the Friends' Institute, Bishopsgate Street. A debate was arranged upon
the Irish question, and Mr ----, knowing how interested Mr Bradlaugh
was in this subject, wrote inviting him to come to the meeting. This
friend writing to me says: "He did come, and by a curious coincidence
I was elected to the chair. Your father spoke, and quite delighted the
Quakers with his earnestness and eloquence. They did not, however,
know who the stranger was, but they pressed him to attend the
adjourned meeting; he said he would, and come fortified with facts and
statistics." My father was extremely gratified by the courtesy shown
him, and the permission given him as a stranger to speak for double
the usual time. At the same time he felt very awkward at receiving the
cheers, congratulations, and special compliments, because he feared
that they would hardly have been so freely accorded if his "real name
and wicked character had been generally known there." His fears were
fully justified, as Mr ----'s letter to me shows. He goes on to say:

 "After the meeting was over and your father had shaken hands with me
 and gone, the members crowded round me to inquire who the eloquent
 visitor was. When they found it was the, at that time, notorious
 Iconoclast, you may imagine their feelings were of a mixed sort. And
 I got into disgrace for introducing him. That I did not mind, and I
 secretly enjoyed their confusion. However, the result was that the
 Secretary of the Society was ordered to write to your father and tell
 him he was not required to attend again."

And Mr Bradlaugh actually did receive a letter officially inviting him
_not_ to attend their next meeting on the Irish question.

In February the formation of an "Ireland Society" was announced in the
_National Reformer_. This was an effort to bring Englishmen together
with the aim of forming "a sounder public opinion" on Irish matters,
but I doubt whether it met with the success the idea deserved. It had
specially for its objects (1) The abolition of the Irish State Church;
(2) A harmonious settlement of the land question; (3) Education for the
poor in Ireland; (4) Atonement for English oppression by encouraging
Irish Industries. At Leeds, at Sheffield, at Newcastle, Mr Bradlaugh
spoke to his audiences on the subject of Ireland until they were moved
to tears by his pictures of the wretched condition of the unhappy I

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