During the rest of the session he is recorded by
Hansard to have spoken on fourteen occasions,
but his remarks were brief and business-like, and
attracted no special attention except to establish
an opinion that when he spoke he spoke to the
point.

There were fifty-nine Home Rulers in the House
at the time when Charley entered it. He appears
to have listened carefully to their speeches in
order to arrive at a separate estimate of each man.
As a whole, he soon arrived at the opinion that
the Irish party simply devoted themselves to sup-
porting measures favourable to Irish interests.
It did not take him long to realize that this policy
of itself would effect little. The Irish party and
its aims were held of little account by both the great
English parties, and any measures introduced by
them received the scantiest consideration. Their
leader, Mr. Isaac Butt, refused to budge an inch
from constitutional methods of warfare. I know
that at that time both Charley and myself agreed
that Butt was, if not too weak a man, at any rate
too unenterprising to be the leader of what then
appeared to be a forlorn hope.

With his invariable resolve never to be beaten,
Charley set himself to work silently but steadily
to find a way out. For this purpose he looked
round for a new policy, or rather a new plan of
campaign and a fitting exponent of it.

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