I am much obliged for your letter, which is just such as I felt sure
you would write.

Pray thank Mrs. Stokes for her kind message. I am very grateful for her
confidence in my uprightness of intention.

We must agree to differ.

It may be needful for me and those who agree with me to place our
opinions on record; but you may depend upon it that nothing will be
done which can suggest any lack of friendship or respect for our
President.

[It will be seen from this correspondence and the letter to Sir J.
Donnelly of July 15, that Huxley was a staunch Unionist. Not that he
considered the actual course of English rule in Ireland ideal; his main
point was that under the circumstances the establishment of Home Rule
was a distinct betrayal of trust, considering that on the strength of
Government promises, an immense number of persons had entered into
contracts, had bought land, and staked their fortunes in Ireland, who
would be ruined by the establishment of Home Rule. Moreover, he held
that the right of self-preservation entitled a nation to refuse to
establish at its very gates a power which could, and perhaps would, be
a danger to its own existence. Of the capacity of the Irish peasant for
self-government he had no high opinion, and what he had seen of the
country, and especially the great central plain, in his frequent visits
to Ireland, convinced him that the balance between subsistence and
population would speedily create a new agrarian question, whatever
political schemes were introduced. This was one of] "the only political