It was all coming to an end.

Drummond died, the Whigs went out of office, Peel governed Ireland, and England too.

Froude just saw the last phase of O'Connellism, and he did not like it.

In politics he never looked very far below the surface of things, and the wrongs of Ireland did not appeal to him.
That Protestantism was the religion of the English pale, and of the Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster, not of the Irish people, was a fact outside his thoughts.

He saw two things clearly enough.