 Official attitudes soon changed; Lord Dufferin tried to divert the National Movement by suggesting to Hume that the Early Nationalists should devote themselves to social rather than political affairs.However, rather than emerging as a tool in the hands of the authorities, the Early Nationalists gradually became the focus of Indian nationalism.In 1887, Dufferin attacked the Early Nationalists in a speech and ridiculed it as representing only a microscopic minority of the people.