prejudice against Dillon. There was nobody living in whose integrity I had more complete confidence than Dillon's; there never was anything in his conduct that was not frank, open, and intelligible, and if he wished to 'get help from all men whose honesty he did not distrust, whatever might have been their mistakes in the past, the sentiment was not strange in a man returning from a distant continent. A private conference of the old League priests was held with Dillon and me, and I found them as rootedly opposed as Moore was to any co-operation with a society of which Dr. Cullen was a member. I thought it unwise and impossible to shut any Irishman out of public life who was not charged with dishonesty or corruption, and I determined to return to Australia. Before I left John Dillon was asked to stand for Tipperary, and he invited me to accompany him to the constituency. I had great satisfaction in the decisive opinion he expressed on independent opposition: "I am a thorough believer (he wrote) in Independent Opposition as a principle of Parliamentary action, and I should feel bound to act in opposition to any minister who will not aid in carrying a satisfactory measure of tenant compensation." He was of course elected, but it is a significant illustration of the senseless and stupid policy, which the Fenians borrowed from the Chartists, that a Fenian mob in the capital of the county silenced by clamour the most distinguished and best-tested Nationalist then in the country.
John George Adair called on me. He has aged a good deal, and his old gaiety is, I fancy, gone; but he is still in the vigour of manhood, a well-preserved, handsome, dignified gentleman. He came, he said, to invite me to spend a week with him in the country, and talk of the dear old times. "Do you want me to be shot?" I asked, smiling? "Oh," he said, "they would not shoot you, even in my company." "Why not?" I rejoined. "If I condoned your offences against the industrious people they would have good grounds for holding me more guilty than you." I do believe that Adair was entirely sincere in his Nationality in '47, but the struggle between hired land and native land rarely ends in favour of the latter. I told him I had an affectionate recollection of our old intercourse, but I could not appear to condone his serious offences.
