218 Jameson Feted in London [1896 



revolutionist, now a renegade tyrant, has fallen. He will be lucky if 

 he does not get torn to pieces in the streets, and it will fare hard with 

 the Italian monarchy. The Duke of Sermoneta, who was at Cairo 

 amusing himself, has been sent for to Rome. He has always been an 

 opponent of 'the Colonial policy, but he will be too late even if they 

 make him minister. 



:e Next the Transvaal business has developed. Jameson and his 

 band have been feted in London, and old Kruger must, I think, be sorry 

 he did not hang them. It would have been the best policy, for English- 

 men are co?wards in the face of hanging, and we should have had no 

 more filibustering for at least a generation. Rhodes, too, has been to 

 England, and seems to have squared 'the Opposition. The inquiry is 

 to be put off, and, if possible, shirked, and I fancy Chamberlain has 

 saved his bacon. It is more obvious, however, than ever that he was 

 in with Rhodes and Jameson, though possibly they acted without his 

 exact knowledge at the last moment. But the Bri'tish public is easily 

 gulled, and Chamberlain's protestations of innocence have been swal- 

 lowed even by the opposition papers and Sir William Harcourt. It is 

 a base world and will not prosper — but it tries one's patience to have 'to 

 wait to see the end of it. 



' T. P. Gill has been here twice this week. He has come here for his 

 health and to pick up ideas about evacuation, and I have got him an 

 audience of the Khedive. He saw Cromer on Thursday, who told him 

 all the usual s'tory about the wickedness of xA.bbas and his unfitness to 

 reign. Gill's impression is that he will try to get him deposed. Cromer 

 also fancies the French will come to terms which will leave him, Cromer, 

 still in power here, but this will not be. It seems, however, certain 

 that negotiations are going on between 'the French and English govern- 

 ments relative to the evacuation. McDonnell has acknowledged the 

 memorandum I sent to Lord Salisbury, who ' thinks I will understand 

 that he cannot write just now on 'the subject of it ' — which is the case. 

 At any rate Lord Salisbury has read it, and that is something. 



" Gill was very interesting in his account of Parnell's last days. He 

 saw much of him in all the time, both before the divorce trial and dur- 

 ing 'the party split which followed. It was he who carried on the 

 negotiations with Dillon and O'Brien when they were at Paris, and he 

 left the party when these failed. He tells me that Parnell had a com- 

 plete case in defence against O'Shea, O'Shea having connived through- 

 out and profited in a money way. The house at Eltham was really 

 Parnell's, and O'Shea went there to blackmail him. He showed his 

 whole defence to Gill before the trial. But Mrs. O'Shea would not 

 allow him to defend himself as she wanted a divorce so as to marry 

 him. She was a woman quite unworthy of him, who neither sym- 

 pathized with his politics nor at all appreciated 'the height of his posi- 



