Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/364

 ever, a number of the Government supporters in Parliament objected on grounds which, when they were analysed, seemed to resolve themselves into the fact that the office ought not to be given to a Catholic. Parkes reported these facts to Butler in the presence of their colleagues, and Butler said that to acquiesce in such an objection from such a motive would be to insult the men of his own creed who formed so large a share of the population. A long and courteous, but extremely bitter correspondence, ensued, during which Butler resigned the Attorney-Generalship, and Parkes offered the office of Chief Justice to Sir James Martin. Cynical persons naturally said that to remove the leader of the Opposition in Parliament was a fine stroke of diplomacy, and perhaps accounted for his second thoughts on the subject. To other persons the selection of Martin, who, like Butler, was born and bred a Catholic, but was a Catholic who had ceased to go to Mass, seemed to indicate that there was a submission to sectarian prejudice. I told Parkes my opinion on the transaction frankly, and our relations were disturbed, but not terminated. When he saw that I meditated a journey to Europe, which might be a final one, he wrote:—