Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/80

 general shaking of hands; Palmerston and Russell sat side by side in the new Cabinet, and the Peelites mingled with the old Whigs. But the minor appointments excited a pause of amazement, and then a storm of indignation. Mr. John Sadleir was a Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. William Keogh Solicitor-General for Ireland. Up to the last minute, in the most express and emphatic manner, Messrs. Keogh and Sadleir had pledged themselves never to take office from, never to support, always to act in opposition to, any Ministry not pledged to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and to make a Land Bill, framed on the principles of Sharman Crawford's, a Cabinet measure. And here was a Government to whom these things were plainly impossible. The Leaguers were not surprised at a perfidy which they had predicted, but they were outraged by its audacious cynicism, and alarmed at its evil example. No one could tell how far the treason would spread. Mr. Anthony O' Flaherty was spoken of as Irish Secretary, and Mr. Vincent Scully for some legal sinecure. It was plain that the military law, which, to prevent desertion, prescribes the flogging of deserters, was applicable to the case, and the leaders and journals of the League applied it vigorously. The provincial Press put the new officials in a pillory, and George Henry Moore separated himself from them peremptorily, warning the country that a question which demanded instant attention from the constituencies—was How many followers they could carry with them across the House? But, though at the outset the desertion seemed to be condemned by a verdict that was universal, it soon became plain that under various decent disguises there were men ready to applaud and justify this "free trade in political profligacy."

The Council of the League took up zealously the resistance to the deserters with one disastrous exception. The Northerns were divided on the subject, but the most influential of them, Dr. M'Knight and Rev. John Rogers, insisted that the new officials must have time to explain themselves—perhaps they had got terms from the Cabinet, and they certainly could be more useful to the cause in office than out of office. I asked them to read the pledge these gentlemen had taken, and to remember the question really at issue was whether members