OF THE 
 U N I VERS IT 
 OF ILLINOI 
 
 941. E 
 D l 2s 
 
SHORT SKETCH 
 
 OF 
 
 English Misrule 
 
 IN 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 ( 1171 — 1887 .) 
 
 ARTHUR J. DAD SON. 
 
 5 
 
 * 
 
 ■i 
 
 * 
 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY & Co. 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1887 . 
 

 * 
 
 
 
 Microfilm Negative # ^/5~ CSZ^ 
 Humanities Preservation Project 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE IN 
 IRELAND. 
 
 N order to understand the question which 
 is now so profoundly exercising the minds 
 of the English people it is necessary to 
 study, in some measure, the history of the con- 
 nection between England and Ireland for some 
 generations back. A knowledge of the past is 
 the only key that will unlock the unfortunate 
 and complex situation of the present. To the 
 majority of Englishmen the Irish appear a 
 savage and ungenerous race of people, who 
 reject our friendship and scorn cur sympathies, 
 and on whom the English milk of human kind- 
 ness has been poured for generations in vain. 
 
 The English press, and especially the illus- 
 trated part of it, is responsible in a great degree- 
 
 X B 
 
 40,5671 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 for this widespread ignorance among all classes 
 in England of the true character of the Irish 
 people. To brand an ill-used and conquered 
 race with all the worst qualities of human 
 nature has, in all ages of the world, been a 
 favourite trick of the governing classes. In- 
 deed, it has passed into a proverb that those 
 whom we injure we revile and hate ; anc 
 if ever history proved the truth of the adag< 
 it has in the case of our treatment of Ire 
 land. Since the days when we first se 
 foot on Irish soil we have persistently anc 
 deliberately sown the seed of discord, and w< 
 have as uniformly reaped the inevitable crop o 
 rebellion. 
 
 Whether we consider the amount of suffering 
 and misery the Irish people have been subjectec 
 to by us, or the long period over which tha 
 suffering and misery has extended, I do noi 
 believe the entire history of the world can offei 
 a parallel. It is a melancholy and humiliating 
 reflection, how great a part of the evils and 
 sufferings of mankind is due to the ignorance) 
 and stupidity of rulers. To all thoughtful men 
 this fact has long been patent, and it is now 
 gradually becoming known to the great bulk of 
 
/.V IRELAND. 
 
 3 
 
 the people, who for the first time in our history 
 are called upon to exercise the right of choosing 
 their lawmakers. The most advanced, the most 
 highly-civilized nations have been those in 
 which political freedom has had the broadest 
 basis; and national intellectual development has 
 always been in proportion to the political 
 enfranchisement of the people. Justice and 
 enlightenment have been the outcome of ex- 
 tended suffrage, and now that many of the 
 people have at length obtained their long- 
 withheld rights we may expect more rapid 
 improvement than heretofore. 
 
 I do not believe for a moment that if the 
 working classes had possessed political power 
 they would have permitted the various English 
 Governments to rule the Irish nation in the 
 brutal manner they have done for so many 
 generations, to the indelible disgrace of the 
 English name all over the world. I have great 
 hope in the rising power and justice of the 
 Democracy, and I believe the day is fast waning 
 in which titled impostors and plutocratic non- 
 entities have been enabled to fill all the depart- 
 ments of state, and usurp the functions of the 
 Legislature and the Government, to the detri- 
 
4 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 ment and almost the ruination of the people, not 
 only of Ireland, but of England also ; for the 
 cause of the Irish is really the cause of the 
 English. Landlordism is at the bottom of all 
 the troubles in Ireland, and most of the troubles 
 in England. It is the upas tree that the English 
 and Irish Democracy combined must not only 
 cut down, but tear up by the roots, and relieve 
 the soil of its poisonous and pestiferous shade. 
 This is the real incubus of modern civilization, 
 which cripples the springs of industry, and 
 poisons all the healthy streams of life. Who 
 among our coming men will first lay the axe to 
 the root? 
 
 The privileged classes in England, by way of 
 explanation of the discontent, misery, and 
 poverty of the Irish people, say they are disso- 
 lute, idle, and ignorant. As a comment on this, 
 we may say — it is a matter of history that, 
 centuries before we landed in Ireland, and 
 when the English roamed their forests in a 
 naked and savage state, the Irish had attained 
 to considerable culture and civilization. Their 
 University at Armagh at the time of the Con- 
 quest was the most celebrated in the world ; 
 most of the Universities of Europe were pre- 
 
IN IRELAND. 5 
 
 sided over by Irishmen ; many of the principal 
 professorial chairs in those Universities were 
 filled by Irishmen ; and the island contained a 
 great number of seminaries of the highest dis- 
 tinction, to which students flocked from all 
 parts of the world. 
 
 Our Alfred the Great invited over an Irish- 
 man to preside over the University of Oxford. 
 And when, at an earlier date, Diocletian and 
 other Roman Emperors persecuted the Chris- 
 tians, many passed over from Britain and else- 
 where to Ireland, where they found a peaceful 
 place of refuge, and were kindly and hospitably 
 treated. When, during the middle ages, the 
 lamp of learning flickered fitfully and faintly in 
 Europe, in Ireland it burnt steadily and 
 brightly ; and it is no exaggeration to say that 
 the learning of the ancient world was to a great 
 extent preserved in Ireland when it had almost 
 died out in every other part. I do not mean to 
 say that the Irish transmitted to us the learning 
 of the ancients : that was the result of the study 
 of the works that came down to us at a time 
 when reaction set in, and Europe began to 
 throw off the dark cloud by which, through 
 certain causes, the mind had been so long 
 
6 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 oppressed. This, however, does not derogate 
 from the credit of the Irish. The fact remains, 
 that when all Europe was in a state of compa- 
 rative barbarism, the Irish people were learned, 
 cultivated, and prosperous. 
 
 At the time of the conquest of Ireland by 
 Henry II., 1171, the social system consisted of 
 a number of clans, or septs, as they were called, 
 each sept having a chief, and possessing a 
 portion of land which was the common property 
 of the septal community. No individual mem- 
 ber of the sept, not even the chief, could own 
 one foot of land as private property. Every 
 male child born in Ireland had therefore an 
 inalienable right in the soil of which no one 
 could deprive him. 
 
 The Irish held the doctrine (which is now 
 rapidly spreading in our country) that, as the 
 soil is the original source of all wealth, without 
 which it is impossible to support life on the 
 earth, and, as the labour of man is powerless to 
 create a single foot of land, there is, and can be, 
 no justification for private property in land. 
 That which is the gift of nature, and which is 
 absolutely essential to human life, belongs to 
 the entire human race, and is the common 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 7 
 
 heritage of all, without any distinction what- 
 soever. 
 
 Any man who possesses the power of saying 
 that the land shall be cultivated or not, as he 
 thinks fit, possesses the power of stopping the 
 supplies of human food, possesses, in fact, the 
 power of life and death over his fellow-man. 
 And he who advocates his right to the earth is 
 bound to prove his right to the lives of his 
 fellow-creatures. The theory of private pro- 
 perty in land is so manifestly opposed to the 
 public welfare, and so immoral and unjust, that 
 no legislator has ever had the hardihood to 
 embody the right in §n Act of Parliament. 
 There is no law in England sanctioning private 
 property in land. These were the views of the 
 Irish on this subject at the time of the English 
 Conquest. 
 
 This just and wise land system provided food 
 for all, and there was, consequently, no such 
 thing as poverty in Ireland. The pangs of 
 hunger, and all the miseries arising therefrom, 
 were unknown in that country before the 
 advent of the English. Henry stayed but a 
 short time in Ireland, but before leaving he 
 took a large quantity of land from the people 
 
8 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 and parcelled it out among his followers, and 
 gave them permission to add to their estates, 
 thus acquired by robbery, by similar acts of 
 lawless depredations. The lands taken by the 
 English were situated chiefly in Munster and 
 Leinster, and came to be known as “The Pale,” 
 the boundaries of which were contracted or 
 enlarged, according as the marauders were suc- 
 cessful or otherwise in the incessant warfare 
 they waged with the Irish Chieftains. Thus 
 did the first English conqueror plant the first 
 agrarian upas tree in Ireland, and bitter has 
 been the fruit to the Irish people. 
 
 Henry being summoned to Normandy by the 
 Pope’s authority to answer for the murder of 
 Thomas a Becket, dubbed himself the Lord of 
 Ireland, and left the island and its people to 
 the tender mercies of the soldiers of fortune, to 
 whom the above-mentioned grants of land had 
 been made. These people had carte blanche to 
 do as they pleased ; they were subject to no 
 law either Irish or English ; and, in their inter- 
 course with the natives, were restrained or 
 actuated by no considerations but those of self- 
 interest. Irish development, social, intellectual, 
 and material, was thus brought to a standstill ; 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 9 
 
 and such has been the conduct of the governing 
 classes that, during the long period of seven 
 hundred years, it has made no advance beyond 
 the point at which it was arrested. Nay, the 
 literal truth compels us to admit that the great 
 body of the Irish people are in a much worse 
 condition now than they were at the time of 
 their subjugation. 
 
 At that period they were ahead of the world, 
 and steadily advancing on the road of progress; 
 they were well fed, well housed, and comfort- 
 ably clothed, and peace and concord reigned 
 among them. They had a long history of 
 unbroken gradual development, extending back 
 many centuries ; and as their country was excep- 
 tionally and specially gifted by nature, and the 
 cares of the body were reduced to a minimum, 
 by the justice of the social system, their minds 
 were, in an eminent degree, predisposed to a 
 continuance of that growth and development 
 by which they had been hitherto distinguished. 
 We may, perhaps, be permitted to indulge in 
 fancy the idea that, in the natural evolution of 
 the Irish system might have been found the 
 solution of those great problems with which 
 Europe is now confronted, and which sooner 
 
10 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 or later must result in tremendous catastrophes. 
 
 To say that Ireland has made no advance 
 for seven hundred years may appear to many a 
 very absurd statement, since her chief cities 
 will compare favourably with those of other 
 parts of Europe; and her sons and daughters 
 are among the most cultivated and learned 
 in the world. Yet, nevertheless, I assert 
 that, with the vast bulk of the people of 
 Ireland, such is really the case; in proof of 
 which we have but to realize the actual con- 
 dition of the four millions of people who live 
 by agriculture— their periodical famines, their 
 perpetual insufficiency of the poorest food, their 
 mud hovels, their scanty raiment, and the never- 
 ending pressure of the military and police, un- 
 roofing their homes, and throwing them out — - 
 men, women, and children — into the roadside 
 in the coldest depth of winter, when exposure 
 to these poor ill-fed, ill-clothed people means 
 disease, fearful suffering, and death. 
 
 In a fertile region like Ireland it is impos- 
 sible that there should not be a portion of the 
 inhabitants in a prosperous state. These 
 belong to the commercial class, and the para- 
 sites and hangers-on of the landlords. They 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 it 
 
 are the blatant Orangemen, and a few others, 
 and are called in England “loyalists” and con- 
 tented subjects. They may well be “ loyal ” 
 and contented, for, though but a fraction of the 
 inhabitants, their grasping covetousness ab- 
 sorbs nearly the whole wealth of the country. 
 The people may be evicted from their homes 
 and starve in thousands, while these “ loyalists ” 
 prosper and flourish, and are loud in their praise 
 of the system under which such things exist. 
 Every page in the history of mankind bears 
 witness to the unbounded greed and wealth of 
 the few, and the poverty and misery of the 
 multitude — the “rights” of the few, the wrongs 
 of the many. 
 
 It is to these people men like Mr. John 
 Bright point when they speak of the loyal and 
 law-abiding part of Ireland — a mere fraction of 
 the inhabitants — whose wealth is actually due 
 to the bad laws and bad government of the 
 country ; and to the great body of the people, 
 the starving and ill-treated four millions, when 
 they speak of the “rebels” and “lawless,” 
 whose misery and poverty are directly due to 
 those very same bad laws and bad government 
 by which the handful of wealthy and contented 
 
12 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 “loyalists” have so much benefited. We shall 
 do well to bear in mind that the “rebel and 
 lawless” Irishmen and women, are not now 
 confined to Ireland, they exist in millions 
 beyond the seas, and are ever growing in num- 
 bers and intensity of hatred of that power 
 which not only made them “ rebels and law- 
 less,” but drove them from their homes and 
 their country. 
 
 To return to our narrative. When Henry 
 left his Norman barons and their followers 
 practically masters of a good part of the 
 country, and independent of law, we can readily 
 understand the condition which must have 
 ensued. The Irish Chieftains, and the people 
 who had been deprived of their land, and, 
 therefore, of their bread, were constantly 
 watching their opportunity of attacking the 
 barons, to regain possession of their property ; 
 while, on the other hand, the barons and their 
 followers were as constantly on the look out for 
 opportunities of extending their possessions by 
 further conquest. And thus a constant warfare 
 was kept up between the two parties. Even- 
 tually, however, they settled down, and in 
 course of time would, no doubt, by intermarriage 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 13 
 
 and other friendly relations, have completely 
 sunk their differences, and become one people, 
 with the same interests and pursuits. Indeed, 
 the early English, or rather Norman- English, 
 did, to a very great extent, amalgamate with the 
 Irish people ; and had it not been for the unac- 
 countably foolish policy of the English Govern- 
 ment the two peoples would have become one ; 
 as was the case in this country with the Nor 
 mans, Saxons, and Danes, and as has always 
 been the case with the conquerors and the 
 conquered when unrestricted intercourse has 
 been permitted. 
 
 The policy, if such it could be called, of the 
 English Government was, however, to keep the 
 two peoples apart, and at enmity one with the 
 other ; and to this end laws were enacted of the 
 most severe and barbarous nature, which, in 
 pursuance of the above-mentioned policy, were 
 directed against the English settlers as well as 
 the native Irish. It was no crime for an 
 Englishman to murder an Irishman or violate 
 an Irishwoman ; and, in fact, the Irish had 
 absolutely no redress for anything they might 
 suffer at the hands of the English. So intoler- 
 able had this state of things become, that,. 
 
14 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 during the reign of Edward I., in 1272, just 
 about one hundred years after the conquest, the 
 Irish petitioned the British Parliament to 
 extend to their unfortunate and distracted 
 country the full benefit of English law, for 
 which they offered to pay. The petition was 
 refused. Had it been granted, though it would 
 have been an entire subversion of every vestige 
 of Irish law, there can be no doubt it would 
 have been a great boon to the people. 
 
 In 1295 an Irish Parliament was created, 
 which was constituted almost entirely of 
 Englishmen, and was the mere creature of the 
 Parliament in England. This Parliament sat 
 at Kilkenny, and from the nature of its first 
 statutes on record we get an accurate know- 
 ledge of its spirit and character, which were 
 deadly to the peace and prosperity of the nation. 
 These particular statutes were directed against 
 the English, in order to keep alive the enmity 
 between the two peoples. They provided the 
 severest punishments for anyone who should use 
 Irish names, language, or apparel, and made it 
 high treason for the English to marry with the 
 Irish. The punishment for this last offence was 
 to behalf -hanged , shamefully mutilate d, and then 
 
IN’ IRELAND. 
 
 i3 
 
 disembowelled alive ! These are the first statutes 
 of the English-composed Irish Parliament, and 
 were passed in 1310. Incredible as they may 
 appear, they were, nevertheless, living realities, 
 and were often acted upon. 
 
 Notwithstanding the severity of the laws 
 against the English and the Irish, designed to 
 keep up a perpetual feud between them, the 
 natural course of events was stronger than all 
 laws; and in course of time the English settlers 
 came to make common cause with the Irish 
 until English rule, in the reign of Henry VI., 
 had almost died out in the country. There was 
 still, however, a considerable amount of jealousy 
 between the Norman Barons and the Septs ; 
 and, though the former had come to look upon 
 Ireland as their native country, and were, to a 
 great extent, Irishmen in feeling and sentiment, 
 they lived in their fortified castles apart by 
 themselves, and were, in reality, subject to no 
 laws but those which they themselves chose to 
 impose ; while the internal government of the 
 Septs was still under the old Irish or Brehon 
 law. 
 
 Henry VII. determined to bring the whole 
 country under the direct control of the British 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 16 
 
 Parliament, and in 1494 Sir Edward Poynings 
 was sent over as Lord Deputy, with a large 
 army at his back, and with full power to take 
 the necessary steps for effecting the object in 
 view. At this date Ireland had been in posses- 
 sion of an independent Parliament of its own 
 for upwards of two hundred years ; and though, 
 as a representative institution, it was a poor, 
 sorry affair, it was, probably, no worse than the 
 Parliament in England. There was no such 
 thing in those days as representative govern- 
 ment, as we understand it now ; and many 
 generations had to pass away before the people 
 of England obtained anything like a represen- 
 tative constitution. Before the passing of the 
 first Reform Bill, in 1832, it would be a farce to 
 say the people were represented in Parliament ; 
 and, even now, since the admission of the agri- 
 cultural labourers, the suffrage is withheld from 
 many who are, by every right of justice, as 
 much entitled to the vote as those who already 
 enjoy it. 
 
 The Irish Parliament was, as I have said, the 
 mere creature of the English Parliament, but it 
 was still an independent Parliament in name ; 
 and nominally subject to the control of no 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 *7 
 
 power outside itself. The King of England 
 was Lord of Ireland, and bore the same rela- 
 tion to the government of the latter, as he did 
 to that of the former, country. The English 
 Parliamentary system of to-day is the outcome 
 of centuries of conflict between the ruling 
 classes and the people ; and if the Irish nation 
 had been similarly free to work out its destiny, 
 there can be little doubt that its Government 
 would as thoroughly express the voice of the 
 people to-day as ours does. 
 
 It is idle, however, to speculate upon what 
 might have been. Henry and his ministers 
 determined to introduce measures which were 
 entirely subversive of Irish law and national 
 independence ; and while leaving the appearance 
 of authority they effectually took away the sub- 
 stance. During the three centuries the English 
 had been in Ireland there had been going on 
 gradually a process of absorption and assimila- 
 tion, and in a short time the distinction between 
 the two would have died out. Henry’s policy 
 arrested this natural course, and introduced still 
 further disturbing elements into the country. 
 It forms an epoch in the connection between 
 the two nations. 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 1 8 
 
 Sir Edward Poynings, on his arrival, sum- 
 moned a Parliament to meet at Drogheda, and 
 passed two measures, known as Poyning’s Acts. 
 By the first, Irish Law was superseded by 
 English law, but this referred only to the Pale. 
 By the second it was enacted that the Irish 
 Parliament should have no power to pass any 
 measure until it had been submitted to, and 
 received the consent of, the Privy Council of 
 England. This practically took away all power 
 from the Irish Parliament, and there was no 
 longer any reason for its continuance. It could 
 neither make, abolish, nor alter any law, the 
 most trivial, without the sanction of the King 
 and his Council. 
 
 Henry VIII. assumed the title of King of 
 Ireland, and added to the troubles occasioned 
 by his predecessor those of religious persecu- 
 tion. Henry, as is well known, constituted 
 himself the champion of Protestantism, and 
 with him began that hatred and intolerance of 
 the Roman Catholics which the Protestants 
 have never ceased to exhibit from that day to 
 this. Henry was desirous of introducing the 
 Reformation into Ireland, and sent over one 
 George Brown, whom he appointed Archbishop 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 *9 
 
 of Dublin. Brown, with his army of proselytisers, 
 committed the most wanton acts of aggression, 
 and even went the length of stealing the valu- 
 ables from the churches and burning the build- 
 ings to the ground. Every opportunity was 
 taken to insult and revile the national religion ; 
 and the most sacred things in the eyes of the 
 Catholics were marks for the ribaldry and con- 
 tempt of the conquerors. 
 
 Priests were the particular objects of their 
 hatred, and nothing that the zeal of theological 
 bigotry could devise was wanting with which to 
 torment the lives of the unfortunate Catholic 
 priests. The more the priests were reviled and 
 persecuted the more the people clung to them, 
 and the stronger grew their religious convictions 
 and their hatred of their oppressors and their 
 new religion. This, of course, is the natural 
 result of all religious persecution since the world 
 began. 
 
 In this sketch we can give only the barest 
 outline of the principal events — can do little 
 more, in fact, than mention them. The reign 
 of Henry VIII. differed little from the preced- 
 ing reigns. There were the usual rebellions, 
 outrages, robberies, and judicial murders of the 
 
20 
 
 EAGLISH MISRULE 
 
 noblest and best of the sons of Ireland. To 
 love your country was a crime, which, if you 
 possessed the courage of a man, eventually 
 resulted in death. As a specimen of the faith 
 the English usually kept with the Irish, we may 
 mention an incident — one of a multitude — which 
 happened in this reign. Lord Kildare, the 
 Lord Deputy, was summoned to England and 
 thrown into the Tower. His son, whom he left 
 to govern in his absence, hearing that his father 
 had been executed, raised the standard of rebel- 
 lion ; but being subdued by Lord Gray, the 
 Commander-in-Chief, surrendered, on condition 
 that he received a pardon for his offence. Lord 
 Gray gave him the most solemn assurance that 
 his life should be spared. He and his five 
 uncles were sent to England, and Henry, refus- 
 ing to recognize the promises of his deputy, had 
 them all beheaded ; though it was well known 
 that several of the uncles were not only inno- 
 cent of having taken any part in the rebellion, 
 but had even set their faces against the pro- 
 ceeding of the nephew, and had been conspicuous 
 in their endeavours to mitigate the excesses of 
 the rebels. The rascalities of this royal brute 
 in England are well known, and we need not 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 21 
 
 therefore be surprised to learn that he dispos- 
 sessed the Church of its land, “ broke down the 
 monasteries, sold their roofs, plate, and bells, 
 and burned their images, shrines, and relics.” 
 
 Immediately on the death of Henry even 
 more rigorous measures were resorted to, in 
 this hunting ground of the English. Under 
 the pretence that several of the Irish Chiefs 
 were on the point of rebellion, the Government 
 laid waste their settlements, captured and mur- 
 dered most of the Chiefs, drove the people out, 
 and confiscated their lands, nearly one million 
 acres, which were given to English settlers. 
 This occasioned a bloody feud for nine years, 
 until at last the Irish had regained possession of 
 their lands. But their triumph and enjoyment 
 of their own were of short duration. A large 
 army was sent into the district, and not a man, 
 woman, or child of the Irish race within the 
 district escaped the fury of the soldiers. Their 
 instructions were to exterminate every family, 
 root and branch ; and they obeyed them to the 
 letter. The English were reinstated, and Mary 
 being now on the throne, these districts were 
 named Queen’s County and King’s County, in 
 honour of herself and husband. They were 
 
22 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 typical of most of the possessions bearing royal 
 designations — the fruit of wholesale murder and 
 robbery. 
 
 Mary, being a Catholic, endeavoured in some 
 measure to mitigate the injustice of the laws 
 against Catholics which had so much embittered 
 the Irish against the English crown, and helped 
 to re-open wounds, which time was fast healing, 
 between what we may now call the Anglo-Irish 
 and the Catholic native Irish. For once, at 
 least, in history, religious zeal was on the side 
 of justice, but it was, unfortunately, of short 
 duration. 
 
 Elizabeth, though in some respects an able 
 ruler, inherited many of the brutal instincts of 
 her father, Henry VIII., and in her treatment 
 of the Catholics pursued a policy of undisguised 
 military brigandage. Henry had endeavoured 
 to soften the rigour of his proceedings by 
 inviting several of the leading chiefs to his 
 court, and inducing them to accept the English 
 title of earl, many of whose descendants are 
 now among the landed aristocracy of Ireland. 
 But Elizabeth disdained to treat with the 
 people otherwise than through the uncompro- 
 mising persuasion of the sword ; and in pur- 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 2 3 
 
 suance of this idea of governing Ireland, she 
 distributed a large army through every part of 
 the country. Mr. Froude, who is the most 
 unfriendly and prejudiced historian that has 
 ever written on Irish affairs, admits that these 
 soldiers lived by plundering the people, and 
 were no better than bandits. 
 
 In January, 1560, she summoned a Parlia 
 ment, every member of which was obedient to 
 her will. All the Catholic Acts passed by Mary 
 were repealed, and a new law, called the Act of 
 Uniformity, was placed upon the statute books. 
 This Act was subversive of all that constituted 
 the vital elements of the Catholic religion. 
 The bishops within the Pale, with few excep- 
 tions, were true to their instincts : they changed 
 their religion and kept their places. Not so, 
 however, with the vast body of priests and the 
 people : they bitterly resented such an unjustifi- 
 able and abominable persecution of the religion 
 of their forefathers. The Catholics, forbidden 
 to congregate in their churches, which were 
 now by an Act of Parliament turned into Pro- 
 testant places of worship, met out in the open 
 fields or by the hill sides, and while they wor- 
 shipped their God in thousands under the broad 
 
24 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 canopy of heaven, the Protestant usurpers, of 
 a dozen or so in a congregation, occupied 
 the churches from which they had driven their 
 fellow Christians, and prayed to a God whose 
 chief attributes they say are love, justice, and 
 righteousness ! 
 
 About this time one of the Chiefs of Ulster, 
 Shane O’Neil, came under the displeasure of the 
 Queen, who tried to get him out of the way by 
 secret assassination ; failing in this, however, 
 her agents induced other tribes to rise against 
 him, and, being ultimately caught, his head was 
 struck off and sent to adorn the walls of Dublin 
 Castle, that sink of iniquity and rascality. Shane 
 O’Neil was one of those brave and fearless 
 characters who, if there had been many more like 
 him, would have made short work of English mis- 
 rule in Ireland. He was styled King of Ulster. 
 After his murder his possessions were confis- 
 cated, and given, as usual, to English settlers. 
 But the lands belonged to the whole of the 
 O’Neil tribe, and in order to get over the diffi- 
 culty of disposing of these people, they were 
 all — men, women, and children — either shot or 
 put to the sword, wherever they could be 
 got at. 
 
IN IRELAND. 25 
 
 Many enterprising agents of Elizabeth con- 
 ceived various ways of exterminating the 
 obnoxious Irish in the districts over which they 
 held sway ; but the palm must certainly be 
 given to Sir Francis Cosby, the Queen’s repre- 
 sentative in Offaly and Leix. This fiend in 
 human shape conceived the idea of extermi- 
 nating with one fell swoop the whole of the 
 Chiefs and their kinsmen in his district, under 
 circumstances so diabolical and atrocious that I 
 doubt if it is to be surpassed by the most mon- 
 strous and bloodthirsty scoundrels the world 
 has ever known. He invited in the most 
 friendly way the whole of these people, to the 
 number of four hundred, to a banquet in the 
 fort of Mullaghmast, and there, in a moment of 
 friendly intercourse, the soldiers, who had been 
 stationed ready to act at a given signal, fell 
 upon them sword in hand, and literally cut to 
 pieces every living soul, except one man, Lalor, 
 who, in the terrible tumult and carnage going 
 on on all sides, made his escape. One hundred 
 and eighty of the chief men belonging to the 
 clan of O’Moore perished at this banquet. The 
 terrible news ran through the country like wild- 
 fire, maddening every soul to vengeance ; and 
 
2 6 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 well indeed it might. Many an Englishman bit 
 the dust with the last earthly sound of “ Remem- 
 the Mullaghmast !” ringing in his ears. The 
 reader does not require to be told that the mis- 
 creant Cosby was but the tool of the great mas- 
 culine “virgin” and her Government in England. 
 He would never have dared to commit such a deed 
 without the sanction of the highest authority. 
 
 The tribes rose in all directions, discretion 
 and fear were thrown to the winds, and men 
 went mad with rage and grief. Even the Chiefs 
 of the Pale joined the insurrection. A large 
 army, under Pelham and Ormonde, was imme- 
 diately despatched to Ireland, and so completely 
 did they carry out the work of slaughter, that 
 Munster, a fourth of Ireland, was laid waste ; 
 and we have it on the authority of Mr. Froude 
 that “ the lowing of a cow or the sound of a 
 ploughboy’s whistle was not to be heard from 
 Valentia to the rock of Cashel.” Throughout 
 the length and breadth of this large and fertile 
 province no human being or domestic animal 
 was to be met with outside the towns ; scarcely 
 a habitation was left standing ; all was desolate 
 and silent as the grave to which the inhabitants 
 had been consigned. 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 27 
 
 The wanton destruction of food produced a 
 famine in the towns and cities, and the terrible 
 sight of people devouring the rotting tenants of 
 the graveyard was often witnessed. Spenser, 
 the English poet, was an eye-witness of the 
 scenes, and has left us an awful account of the 
 misery and suffering of the people. Raleigh, 
 who had charge of a part of the army, was 
 guilty of an act of cold-blooded cruelty. Smer- 
 wick contained a fort, in which a number of 
 Irish had taken refuge. They surrendered at 
 discretion, and were all killed by Raleigh and 
 his men in cold blood. 
 
 Other parts of Ireland besides Munster 
 were devastated at this time. The Pale shared 
 almost the same fate. Martial law was declared 
 in Dublin, and people in hundreds were hanged 
 without any form or pretence of trial. The land 
 of Munster having been cleared of its inhabi- 
 tants and rightful owners, was settled upon 
 English adventurers, who held it of the Crown 
 by payment of a quit rent of so much a year. 
 Many other estates in other parts of Ireland 
 belonging to great Chiefs were seized by the 
 Crown and given to Englishmen. The Irish 
 did not, it may be surmised, submit quietly to 
 
28 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 such treatment, and much of the land thus 
 taken by force was reclaimed by a similar power, 
 and the English settlers driven off. A nation 
 subject to such treatment could not, of course, 
 make any progress or know any peace. Every- 
 thing was insecure ; no man could call his life 
 his own, much less his property ; and truly may 
 it be said of Ireland, as Gibbon said of the 
 Roman Empire, “ The shades of night had 
 settled over the world.” 
 
 From the time of Henry II. to the reign of 
 Elizabeth England had made tremendous pro- 
 gress intellectually and materially, while Ireland, 
 from being a happy, contented, prosperous, pro- 
 gressive nation, had become barren, desolate, 
 and impoverished— the home of misery, starva- 
 tion, and despair. 
 
 At the death of Elizabeth Ireland was in a 
 more chaotic and distracted state than ever. 
 Her successor, James I., followed in the foot- 
 steps of his predecessors ; and soon the most 
 formidable rebellion the English had had to 
 encounter was headed by the famous Chiefs 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnell, who had been made 
 earls in a previous reign. From all parts of the 
 country the Irish flocked to their standard, and 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 29 
 
 such was their success that within a short time 
 all Ireland, with the exception of Dublin and a 
 few garrison towns, was in their hands. This 
 insurrection broke out just before the death of 
 the Queen, and helped in great measure to 
 hasten her end. She was greatly incensed at 
 the conduct of her favourite lover Essex, 
 who was sent to suppress the rising ; and in a 
 fit of rage had him executed. She is said to 
 have repented, and died of remorse. Essex 
 was recalled, and the largest army ever sent to 
 Ireland was despatched, under the command of 
 Lord Mountjoy. The insurrection was soon 
 put down, and the horrors the Irish had to 
 endure no tongue can speak, no pen can write. 
 
 Moryson, Mountjoy’s secretary, says, refer- 
 ring to this period, “ The carcasses of people 
 lay in ditches, their dead mouths open, green 
 with the docks and nettles on which they had 
 endeavoured to support life. Young children 
 were trapped and eaten by the starving women 
 who were hiding in the woods on the Newry. 
 He and Sir Arthur Chichester witnessed the 
 horrible spectacle of three young children 
 devouring the entrails of their dead mother.” 
 Hume says, writing of this period: “The small 
 
30 
 
 English Misrule 
 
 army which the English maintained in Ireland 
 they never supplied regularly with pay, and as 
 no money could be levied from the island, which 
 possessed none, they gave the soldiers the 
 privilege of free quarters on the natives. 
 Rapine and insolence inflamed the hatred 
 which prevailed between the conquerors and 
 the conquered, and want of security among the 
 Irish introduced despair. For the English 
 carried further their ill-judged tyranny. . . . 
 
 They even refused, though earnestly solicited, 
 to communicate to them the privileges of their 
 laws, and everywhere marked them out as aliens 
 and enemies.” 
 
 Spenser, who held military command in 
 Ireland, says: “Notwithstanding the province 
 of Munster was a most plentiful country, full of 
 corn and cattle, yet, ere one year and a half, 
 they were brought to such wretchedness as that 
 any heart would rue the same. Out of every 
 corner of the woods and glens they came creep- 
 ing forth upon their hands, as if their legs could 
 not bear them. They looked like anatomies of 
 death ; they spake like ghosts crying out of 
 their graves ; they did eat the dead carrion, 
 happy when they could find them — yea, and 
 
In Ireland. 
 
 31 
 
 one another soon after, insomuch that the very 
 carcases they spared not to scrape out of their 
 graves ; and if they found a plot of watercress 
 and shamrock there they flocked as to a feast 
 for a time (yet not able to continue there 
 withal) that in a short space there was none 
 almost left ; and a most populous and plenteous 
 country was suddenly left void of man and 
 every living creature.” 
 
 The powerful family of the Desmonds was 
 completely extirpated, and their lands, 574,000 
 acres, confiscated, and, as usual, the greater 
 part divided amongst English settlers, with the 
 condition annexed, that none of Irish blood 
 should be allowed on any part of the property. 
 
 By this brief mention of some of the leading 
 facts of Irish history, during the 300 years pre- 
 ceding the reign of Elizabeth, we see that the 
 natural conditions necessary for the normal 
 development of a people, politically, socially, 
 economically, had been persistently harassed 
 and destroyed by the ignorant and brutal con- 
 duct of the various English rulers arid their 
 governments. As we go on we shall find that 
 the same policy of imbecility and injustice has 
 been pursued down to the present day. And if 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 3 « 
 
 it be true, as Buckle and other philosophical 
 historians maintain, that the condition of a 
 people at any given time is the outcome of 
 preceding conditions, extending over several 
 generations, it would be against the laws of 
 nature to expect in Ireland, or in any other 
 country similarly treated, a state of affairs 
 different to what we find there at the present 
 moment. “ As we sow so shall we reap,” and 
 if we “ sow the wind we must reap the whirl- 
 wind.” National injustice will inevitably pro- 
 duce tumult and disorder, and all the fearful 
 consequences arising therefrom. 
 
 If we are disposed to look upon that period 
 as a barbarous time, let us bear in mind that it 
 was the age of Shakespeare and Bacon, and 
 many of the brightest names in philosophy, 
 science, and literature. It was pre-eminently a 
 time in the life of England when justice and 
 humanity should have guided her councils in 
 the treatment of a subject race. But justice 
 and humanity have never been the character- 
 istics of English governments, even down to 
 the present day, when imaginary “ British inte- 
 rests ” have been concerned. 
 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnel fled from Ireland, and 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 33 
 
 James proceeded in the usual course to confis- 
 cate the land right and left. Donegal, Derry, 
 Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Armagh, and part 
 of Ulster were seized, amounting to 2,838,972 
 acres, and disposed of to Englishmen and 
 English companies at merely nominal prices. 
 Many of the City of London companies went in 
 for the loot ; among them were the Mercers, 
 Salters, Skinners, Ironmongers, and Drapers. 
 The estates in Ireland now held by these 
 demoralized and demoralizing companies were 
 stolen from the Irish people. The rich ban- 
 quets at which these companies and their 
 friends sit and guzzle and feast from one 
 year’s end to another are supplied from rack 
 rents which are collected from a starving people 
 at the point of the bayonet. 
 
 Ulster became a colony of Protestants and 
 anti- Irish, and the most bitter and implacable 
 foes to the people whom they had robbed of all 
 they possessed. From that day to this Ulster 
 has never been in reality a part of Ireland. 
 The people of that province, planted originally 
 by an alien race, have preserved through half-a- 
 dozen generations the spirit and hatred with 
 which their forefathers settled on the lands of 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 ENGLISH MISHULE 
 
 the vanquished. The blood of their robber- 
 ancestors still courses through their veins. 
 Rich with the spoils of the plundered native 
 Irish they have been enabled to push their 
 poisonous fangs in all directions through the 
 country ; and, in conjunction with the landlords 
 and their parasites, cry aloud for a continuance 
 of that unjust and abominable misrule by which 
 they have so much benefited. 
 
 James, like most other mortals, died with 
 part of his schemes unfulfilled, one of which was 
 the planting of Connaught with English and 
 Scotch, as he had planted other parts. Charles, 
 however, inherited the idea ; but with more 
 respect for “ law and order ” than his father 
 had manifested, he appointed a number of 
 obedient lawyers to investigate and discover 
 “ flaws ” in the title-deeds of the owners of the 
 land of Connaught. Needless to say, the title 
 deeds were full of “ flaws,” and Charles, in con- 
 sequence, soon found himself master of the 
 whole of the province. 
 
 His fertile intellect now conceived a scheme 
 for squeezing some money out of his Irish 
 subjects, of which he always stood so much in 
 need. The fertility of Royal intellects is rarely 
 
iSt IRELAND. 
 
 35 
 
 shown except for the purpose of enriching their 
 possessors at the expense of the people. 
 Charles was not so fortunate as most of his 
 Royal brethren ; he paid the penalty of his 
 rascality with his head. The disabilities under 
 which the Catholics lived were an intolerable 
 burthen, and no sacrifice would have been deemed 
 by them too great for the recovery of their civil 
 and religious liberty. The king offered to grant 
 them this on payment of a certain sum of 
 money. On the faith of his Royal word the 
 money was paid, but the relief was never 
 granted. In plain terms, it was nothing but 
 a deliberate swindle from beginning to end. 
 
 We now come to what is called the Great 
 Rebellion of 1641. This, like all other rebel- 
 lions, was the result of many years of oppression. 
 
 We cannot, of course, in this brief narrative 
 enter into the details of the rebellion. Most 
 English historians have treated it in a very one- 
 sided way. The Irish fought with the courage 
 of desperation and despair, and many were 
 killed on both sides. The carnage, no doubt, 
 was dreadful ; but on whose heads rested the 
 blood that was shed ? Surely on those of the 
 English. The soil of Ireland might be drenched 
 
3 ^ 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 with the blood of the Irish and provoke no 
 generous or indignant comment from English 
 writers ; but when the same measure was meted 
 out to the English by those whom they had 
 so long oppressed, the matter assumed a very 
 different aspect, and the language of vitupera- 
 tion has been loud against the Irish. 
 
 To meet the expenses of this rebellion the 
 Long Parliament confiscated 2,500,000 acres. 
 An army of jingo adventurers was raised in 
 England, and paid for by grants from the con- 
 fiscated land. They quarrelled, as a matter of 
 course, over the division of the spoil, and ulti- 
 mately agreed to settle the matter by drawing 
 lots. This lottery was held in Grocers’ Hall, 
 London, July, 1653. The portions of land thus 
 bestowed upon soldiers and volunteer jingoes 
 were situated in Ulster, Leinster, and Munster. 
 Connaught was reserved as a kind of penal 
 settlement for the remnants of the Irish people. 
 They were not allowed to appear within two 
 miles of the river Shannon, or four miles of the 
 sea, without a passport. Any Irish person — 
 man, woman, or child — found within the for- 
 bidden district was immediately hanged or shot, 
 according as the materials for the one death or 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 37 
 
 the other were nearest to hand. Irish noble- 
 men were compelled to wear a distinctive mark 
 upon their dress, and the people a black spot on 
 their cheeks, so that they might be known and 
 shunned. It was death without trial to appear 
 without these badges. 
 
 It was not an easy matter to coop up the 
 whole of a nation in one small part of its terri- 
 tory; and, as it was found impossible to hang or 
 shoot the whole of those found outside of Con- 
 naught, many thousands were shipped to the 
 West Indies and sold as slaves. Sir William 
 Petty states that 6,000 little boys and girls were 
 torn from their parents and disposed of in this 
 way. Over 1,000 girls who had arrived at the 
 age of fourteen were sent to the newly-acquired 
 colony of Jamaica, and distributed among the 
 soldiers or sold to the planters. 2,000 boys, 
 between twelve and fourteen years of age, were 
 caught and sold in a similar way. Altogether 
 the total number sent to the West Indies and 
 Virginia was over 10,000. 
 
 We are now in the period of Cromwell — the 
 most sanguinary, perhaps, in the whole history 
 of Ireland. As soon as he had disposed of 
 King Charles he hastened to Ireland, and in 
 
38 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 the name of Jesus, slew every human being of 
 the Irish race on whom he could lay hands. 
 Cromwell was called Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland. It was under the Cromwellian rule 
 the above-mentioned boys and girls were sold 
 into slavery. Many fearful deeds have been 
 done in the name of Jesus, but we doubt if 
 many can compare with Cromwell’s in Ireland. 
 As soon as he arrived at Dublin he marched on 
 to Drogheda, with an army of 9,000 foot and 
 4,000 horse, and having obtained the submission 
 of the garrison by the most solemn promises to 
 spare their lives, slew every living soul, includ- 
 ing 3,000 inhabitants, in the name of Jesus. 
 Wherever he went he carried with him waggon 
 loads of bibles, and as he marched on from one 
 field of slaughter to another he distributed them 
 in great numbers, and refreshed and strength- 
 ened his soul for the work he had in hand by 
 repeated perusals of the holy book. 
 
 Having butchered the inhabitants of Drog- 
 heda he pushed on to Wexford, and treated it 
 in like manner, slaying 2,000 inhabitants. 
 Meanwhile Cromwell’s Generals were imitating 
 his example in other parts of Ireland, and so 
 thorough had been their campaign of slaughter 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 39 
 
 that in a short time the pious army had com- 
 pleted its work, and the silence of despair 
 settled over the land. 
 
 Mr. C. P. Deane, in his “ Short History of 
 Ireland,” writing of this period, says: — “No 
 vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to 
 exist ; Catholic lawyers and schoolmasters were 
 silenced, and all ecclesiastics were slain like the 
 priests of Baal. Three bishops and three hun- 
 dred clergy thus perished. It is even said that 
 the hunting to death of the priests became an 
 exciting species of chase. In county Clare and 
 parts of Connaught the people were driven like 
 cattle , } and if in any mountainous recesses or 
 caves a few peasants were detected at mass 
 they were smoked out and shot. A proclama- 
 tion was issued that, after the ist March, 1654, 
 all Irish Catholics — men, women, or children — 
 who should be found in the kingdom, might be 
 killed by any person who should meet them, 
 without charge or trial.” 
 
 It is computed that foreign states obtained 
 from Ireland, between 1651 and 1654, 44,000 
 recruits for their armies. 
 
 The following passage from the writings of 
 Professor Goldwin Smith fairly describes Ireland 
 
4 o 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 at the time of the death of Cromwell : — “ The 
 peace of complete submission reigned in Ireland. 
 Law was regularly administered, and the Pro- 
 testant community at least presented a picture 
 of prosperity. But it is difficult to believe that 
 the lot of the Irish Catholics can have been 
 otherwise than hard under the domination of 
 those fanatical children of the old covenant, 
 who were dwelling in vineyards which they had 
 not planted, and houses which they had not 
 built ; who ranked the religion of the subdued 
 race with idolatry, and who must have con- 
 stantly read in the expressive faces of the 
 people intense hatred mingled with cowering 
 fear. To make Ireland like Yorkshire is said 
 to have been the Protector’s object ; and this, 
 as far as the nature of things permitted, his 
 genius as a rule achieved ; but the nature of 
 things rendered it impossible for him to do 
 more than create a Yorkshire on the surface, 
 while an Ireland still lay alien and vindictive 
 below.” 
 
 The English Government now entered upon 
 a course of exceptional legislation for Ireland, 
 from which many of the troubles of the present 
 day date their origin, and to which is due, far 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 4i 
 
 more than to all other causes combined, the 
 impoverished condition of Ireland. The Earl 
 of Strafford was at this time the Lord Deputy, 
 and acting under instruction from England, he 
 and his Council at Dublin Castle imposed upon 
 the Irish Parliament certain measures, the 
 object of which was to destroy the woollen 
 trade. The Irish Parliament never had any 
 authority but to do as it was told, and the 
 woollen trade, which was one of the most valu- 
 able of the Irish industries, was completely and 
 irrecoverably destroyed, because it interfered 
 with that of England. 
 
 Were it not an unquestionable fact of history 
 we should hesitate to believe that any English 
 Government, or its trusted officials, could be 
 guilty of the monstrous folly and wickedness of 
 deliberately destroying a thriving industry of a 
 poor and struggling people, because it interfered 
 in some slight measure with the interest of 
 English wool growers. But, incredible as this 
 may seem, to destroy Irish industries became 
 the settled policy of England, as we shall see 
 as we proceed. This policy was dictated by 
 selfishness, and that blind ignorance of econo- 
 mic questions by which most of the men 
 
42 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 composing our Governments, even down to 
 the present day, have been characterized. 
 
 Nothing will so effectually and permanently 
 impoverish a nation as laws which cripple trade 
 and commerce. The author of “ History of 
 Commercial Restraints,” which was burnt by the 
 common hangman, says “ A country will sooner 
 recover from the miseries and devastations 
 occasioned by war, invasion, rebellion, and mas- 
 sacre, than from laws restraining the commerce, 
 discouraging the manufactures, fettering the 
 industry, and above all, breaking the spirits of 
 the people.” 
 
 An Act was passed in 1663 prohibiting the 
 exportation of anything from Ireland to the 
 colonies, thus shutting out the colonies from 
 Irish industry of every description. A similar 
 Act was also passed declaring the importation 
 of Irish cattle into England to be a “ Publick 
 and common nuisance.” Another statute for- 
 bade the importation from Ireland of beef, 
 pork, bacon, butter, and cheese. In 1670 an 
 Act was passed forbidding the Irish to receive 
 from the English colonies sugar, tobacco, cotton- 
 wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, or other dyeing 
 wood. Restrictive laws were also enacted des- 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 43 
 
 troying trade in glass, silk, hops, Irish beer, 
 malt, and many other articles of Irish industry. 
 These Acts had the effect of destroying the 
 shipping trade, and, as a matter of course, all 
 other trades and industries connected with it. 
 
 It is difficult to write with calmness and pro- 
 priety of such shameful and barefaced villainy 
 as is exhibited in the addresses of the British 
 Lords and Commons to the King, praying that 
 Irish trades and industries one by one might be 
 suppressed. The penalties for infringing any 
 of these infamous laws were very severe, and to 
 ensure conviction in all cases, the offenders, if 
 they escaped in an Irish Court, could be seized 
 and brought to England, and re-tried in an 
 English court of law. Anyone found exporting 
 either the raw material or manufactured woollen 
 stuffs forfeited both goods and ship, and a 
 money payment of ^500. 
 
 Dean Swift wrote, in 1720, “ Whoever 
 
 travels in this country, and observes the face of 
 nature, and the faces and habits and dwellings 
 of the natives, will hardly think himself in a 
 land where law, religion, or common humanity 
 is professed.” To such a condition had English 
 rule reduced the whole country. I cannot give 
 
44 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 many quotations, but the writings and speeches 
 of most of the great men in every age, during 
 the last three hundred years, abound in the 
 most emphatic and scathing condemnation of 
 England’s conduct to Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Hely Hutchinson, who was a Principal 
 Secretary of State, summarising the effects of 
 restrictive legislation from 1699 to 1779, writes, 
 “ Can the history of any fruitful country on the 
 globe, enjoying peace for four score years, and 
 not visited by plague or pestilence, produce so 
 many recorded instances of the poverty and 
 wretchedness, and of the reiterated want and 
 misery of the lower orders of the people ? 
 There is no such example in ancient or modern 
 story.” 
 
 The State haviug, by the most deliberate and 
 express laws, ruined the industries and com- 
 merce of the country, and brought the people 
 to a condition in which no strength or spirit 
 was left for resistance, now turned its attention 
 to another series of laws, the object of which 
 was to ruin agriculture, as the industries had 
 been ruined. The only means of subsistence 
 now left to the Irish people was the cultivation 
 of the land, which was so fertile and rich that it 
 
IN IRELAND. 45 
 
 was capable of yielding abundance for four or 
 five times the number of inhabitants. In the 
 spirit of resignation and despair they turned to 
 their land, in the hope of obtaining, at least, a 
 bare livelihood. But here they were pursued 
 with the same relentless persecution that had 
 never ceased to oppress them ; and with the 
 real object of utterly ruining the nation, so that 
 the people might be in such a state of weakness 
 and poverty as to prevent all further troubles to 
 their rulers, they were expressly forbidden to 
 plough or break the soil ! 
 
 Mr. Froude says, referring to these laws : — 
 “ The soil needed only to be drained, cleared of 
 weeds, and manured to produce grass crops 
 and corn crops as rich as the best in England. 
 Here was employment for a population three 
 times more numerous than as yet existed. 
 Here was a prospect, if not of commercial 
 wealth, yet of substantial comfort and material 
 abundance. . . . The tenants were forbidden in 
 their leases to break or plough the soil. The 
 people no longer employed were driven away 
 into holes and corners, and eked out a wretched 
 subsistence by potato gardens, or by keeping 
 starving cattle of their own on the neglected 
 
4 6 
 
 English MisruLe 
 
 bogs. . . . The English deliberately determined 
 to keep Ireland poor and miserable, as the 
 readiest means to prevent it being trouble- 
 some." 
 
 Mr. J. R. Green, in his “ Short History of 
 the English People,” writing of Ireland under 
 the Georges, says : — “England did her best to 
 annihilate Irish commerce and to ruin Irish 
 agriculture. Statutes by the jealousy of 
 English landowners forbade the export of Irish 
 cattle or sheep to English ports. The export 
 of wool was forbidden, lest it might interfere 
 with the profits of the English woolgrowers. 
 Poverty was thus added to the curse of mis- 
 government, and the poverty, deepened by the 
 rapid growth of the native population, turned 
 the country into a hell." 
 
 One would think that the measure of 
 England’s iniquities was full with such a record, 
 but, bad as it is, there is still worse to come. 
 We have yet to record the passing of laws for 
 Ireland which stand absolutely alone in their 
 depth of infamy and diabolical ingenuity. The 
 men who framed the laws of the Papists’ or 
 Penal Code, together with those who sanctioned 
 them in Parliament, were, I will venture to say, 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 47 
 
 the most heartless scoundrels that ever had the 
 power of oppressing their fellow man. And 
 their mantle has fallen upon some of their 
 descendants, who are active among us to-day. 
 
 William of Orange was on the throne of 
 England when the first laws of the Penal Code 
 were passed. They were worthy of the authors 
 of the Massacre of Glencoe. How far William 
 was morally responsible for either I am not 
 here concerned. It is not my business to 
 adjust the blame between him and his ministers. 
 Suffice it that at this period were passed laws 
 against the Catholics which are absolutely un- 
 paralleled in their atrocious villainy by the 
 laws of any civilized nation of ancient or modern 
 times. No Englishman of the present day, 
 except perhaps a rabid Tory, can think of them 
 without feelings of horror and shame. 
 
 The following are some of the provisions of 
 these ferocious laws. I ask the reader to pause 
 after reading them, and think of the unspeak- 
 able misery and degredation they must have 
 brought to the people subject to them. 
 “Under these laws Catholics could not sit in 
 the Irish Parliament, or vote members to it. 
 They were excluded from the army and navy, 
 
4 8 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 the corporation, the magistracy, the bar, the 
 bench, the grand juries, and the vestries. 
 They could not be sheriffs or soldiers, game- 
 keepers or constables. They were forbidden 
 to own any arms, and any two justices or 
 sheriffs might at any time issue a search 
 warrant for arms. The discovery of any kind 
 of weapon rendered its Catholic owner liable to 
 fines, imprisonment, whipping, or the pillory. 
 They could not own a horse worth more than 
 five pounds, and any Protestant tendering that 
 sum could compel his Catholic neighbour to sell 
 his steed. No education whatever was allowed 
 to Catholices. A Catholic could not go to the 
 University ; he might not be the guardian of a 
 child ; he might not keep a school, or send his 
 children to be educated abroad, or teach 
 himself. No Catholic might buy land, or 
 inherit or receive it as a gift, from Protestants, 
 or hold life annuities or leases for more than 
 thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms as 
 that the profits of the land exceeded one-third 
 the value of the land. If a Catholic purchased 
 an estate, the first Protestant who informed 
 against him became his proprietor. The eldest 
 son of a Catholic, upon apostatizing, became 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 49 
 
 heir-at-law to the whole estate of his father, and 
 reduced his father to the position of a mere life 
 tenant. A wife who apostatized was imme- 
 diately freed from her husband’s control, 
 assigned a certain share of her husband’s 
 property. Any child, however young, who 
 professed to be a Protestant was at once taken 
 from his father’s care, and a certain proportion ot 
 his father’s property assigned to him.” 
 
 “ I must do it justice,” said Burke ; “ it was 
 a complete system, full of coherence and 
 consistency, well digested and well composed 
 in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and 
 elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the 
 oppression, impoverishment, and degradation 
 of a people, and the debasement in them of 
 human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the 
 perverted ingenuity of man.” 
 
 It has been well said — “ The memory of this 
 code will remain a reproach to human nature, 
 and a terrible monument of the vileness into 
 which nations may be led when their religion 
 has been turned into hatred, and they have 
 been taught to believe that the indulgence of 
 the most malignant passions of man is an 
 acceptable offering to God, for it was a code of 
 
 E 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 5 ° 
 
 degradation and proscription — religious, politi- 
 cal, and social.” 
 
 Ireland, as we have seen, had regularly pos- 
 sessed a Parliament ; but it never had any real 
 power, and was rarely called upon to go 
 through the farce of sitting oftener than once in 
 two years, and then its only work was to vote 
 supplies for the next two years. But even of 
 this poor make-believe of a Parliament England 
 was jealous, and in the time of George I. an 
 Act was passed, which declared that the 
 English Parliament had full power and autho- 
 rity to make laws and statutes to bind the 
 Kingdom of Ireland. Let it be borne in mind 
 that Ireland never had a Parliament, in the 
 true sense of the word, until the time of Grat- 
 tan’s Parliament. It never represented the 
 people, and if it had it would have been useless, 
 since it possessed no legislative authority. The 
 Lord-Lieutenant and his officials at Dublin 
 Castle were the real rulers of Ireland, and they 
 were at all times the creatures of the English 
 Government, and alien to the Irish people. 
 The Lord-Lieutenant was appointed for two 
 years, but he rarely stayed in Ireland longer 
 than a few months. 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 Si 
 
 For three generations following the intro- 
 duction of the Penal Code there is little to 
 record of the Irish nation. The spirit had been 
 completely crushed out of its people, and all 
 thought of social liberty or political freedom 
 had died out. The long contest had broken 
 their heart, and for many a long year they 
 ceased to struggle. Within a century the whole 
 of the land of Ireland had been confiscated, 
 and large portions of it twice or thrice over 
 within the same space of time. The various 
 acts passed relating to Irish industries had 
 ruined the commerce of the nation, and made 
 the people entirely dependent upon agriculture 
 for their subsistence. Agriculture, again, being 
 subjected to similarly ruinous laws, had reduced 
 the people to a condition bordering upon starva- 
 tion. There being no field for the employment 
 of capital, nearly the whole of the capital left 
 the country ; and tlie only means of livelihood 
 left to the great body of the people was by the 
 cultivation of small plots of land, on which they 
 grew potatoes. The competition for these small 
 plots of land was so great, says Mr. J. S. Mill, 
 in his “ Political Economy,” that sometimes the 
 tenants agreed to pay rents which were nine 
 
S 2 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 times in excess of their actual value. And this 
 the landlords call “freedom of contract !” If a 
 man could not obtain a small plot of land on 
 which to grow his potatoes, he and his wife and 
 children must have starved, for there was no 
 employment for him or other means whereby 
 he could earn a living. Under such a state of 
 things, to obtain a plot of land, however small, 
 was the primary condition of their life ; the 
 amount of rent was quite a secondary matter, 
 for the poor creatures hoped to secure a portion 
 of the crop of potatoes before the rest was 
 seized by their landlords for rent. In this way 
 they were always at the mercy of the landlords, 
 and, as a matter of course, continually in 
 arrears. 
 
 This condition, with some slight modifications, 
 exists to the present day. It is quite in accord- 
 ance, then, with the fitness of things that the 
 nation should suffer from scarcity, and at times 
 be subject to famine more or less severe. 
 Indeed, for a long period famine was almost a 
 chronic condition of the poorer classes. But in 
 1741 a terrible famine ravaged the whole 
 country, bringing disease and death in its train 
 to all classes of the community. The poor died 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 53 
 
 in thousands by the wayside and in the fields. 
 Many fled to America and elsewhere from their 
 tyranny-oppressed and famine-stricken country ; 
 and bitter were the memories they transmitted 
 to their children, from whom the still struggling 
 Irish nation now receive the warmest sympathy 
 and material support. Over 400,000 lives 
 perished during this famine. 
 
 The suppression of all constitutional forms of 
 agitation, the forbidding of all political meetings, 
 led to the formation of secret societies, — the 
 White-boys, the Oak-boys, and Hearts of Steel; 
 and between these and the military a constant 
 warfare was kept up. Lord Chesterfield, who 
 was viceroy in 1 745, and was by far the most 
 just and honourable man who had filled that 
 office, declared that “ if the military force had 
 killed half as many landlords as it had White- 
 boys, it would have contributed more effectually 
 to restore quiet; for the poor people in Ireland,” 
 said Lord Chesterfield, “are worse used than 
 negroes by their masters.” Lord Chesterfield, 
 during the short period he held office, pursued 
 a just and humane policy, as far as he was able; 
 but the task of doing justice to Ireland was 
 beyond the powers of any one man ; and as 
 
54 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 soon as his viceroyalty ceased his beneficent 
 policy came to an end. 
 
 The year 1745 witnessed the death of Dean 
 Swift, “ the only representative of the nation,” 
 to use Mr. Deane’s language, “ who kept his 
 lamp of patriotism burning through the hours 
 of its deepest darkness.” Swift was a man of 
 remarkable genius ; as a writer he has rarely 
 been surpassed, and Ireland owes much to the 
 scathing sarcasm with which he assailed and 
 exposed the herd of petty tyrants who sucked 
 the blood of his fellow countrymen. 
 
 About this time was established an unjust 
 and oppressive tax, bad enough in itself, but 
 rendered infinitely worse by the opportunities it 
 gave to the landlords to rob and oppress the 
 poor. Every householder had to give six days’ 
 labour in the year for the repairs of the roads. 
 The landlords extended this unpaid labour to 
 their own estates, and compelled the people, 
 under pains and penalties, to work for them 
 without any kind of payment whatever. They 
 were indeed, and are to this day, leeches of the 
 most insatiable and voracious character. To 
 use Shelleys’ expressive metaphor, “ They 
 drain the sweat and drink the blood of the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 SS 
 
 people,” and hound on whatever Government is 
 in power to use the military and police to 
 enforce their rascally claims. 
 
 We are now approaching Grattan’s Parlia- 
 ment, which was the first and only Parliament 
 that possessed any freedom, or in any way 
 represented the people. It is difficult to under- 
 stand how a Parliament could have existed for 
 so many years without possessing even so much 
 as the shadow of authority. The Irish House 
 of Lords had no appellate jurisdiction, nor had 
 the House of Commons any authority to legis- 
 late for the country. No bill could be passed 
 into law. The “ heads of a bill ” might be 
 brought in, and if agreed to by both houses, 
 sent on to the Viceroy, who gave it to his Privy 
 Council to alter if they chose, and send it on to 
 England, or throw it into the waste-paper 
 basket. If, however, it reached England, the 
 Attorney-General could modify or alter it as he 
 liked, even to the entire remodelling and nega- 
 tiving all its clauses ; then, if approved by the 
 English Council, it was sent back to Ireland, 
 where the Parliament could either reject or 
 accept it in Mo, but had no power to alter it. 
 The majority of the members were either the 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 56 
 
 placemen of the English Government or the 
 nominees of protestant landlords. 
 
 It is, therefore, absurd and unjust to use as 
 an argument against Home Rule the contention 
 that Ireland for many generations was governed 
 by its own Parliament, as many Englishmen do. 
 It never was governed by its own Parliament. 
 It never even possessed a Parliament of its own, 
 for the so-called Irish Parliament was, as I have 
 shown, a mere sham, without authority or even 
 influence with its masters, the Viceroy, his 
 Council, and the English Government. No 
 country in this world could possibly have had 
 such a history if it had been governed by its 
 own people. 
 
 In 1775 Henry Grattan entered Parliament 
 on the nomination of Lord Charlemont. He 
 was a true patriot, fearless and honest, and one 
 of the most eloquent men that ever pleaded a 
 great cause. Conscious of his transcendent 
 abilities and almost unbounded powers of per- 
 suasion, he set himself a task, the partial accom- 
 plishment of which has rendered his name 
 eternally famous in the annals of his country. 
 For a time he was ably seconded by Henry 
 Flood, and Charles Lucas, the founder of the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 57 
 
 well-known Freeman’s Journal a paper whose 
 long life has been devoted to the interests of 
 Ireland, and has proved itself well worthy of its 
 patriotic and noble origin. These three men 
 possessed, in an eminent degree, the qualifica- 
 tions and abilities necessary for the great work 
 of regenerating their country, and creating for 
 it a free and independent Parliament. Lucas, 
 through the medium of the Freeman’s Journal, 
 infused new life and spirit into the Irish people, 
 and denounced, in glowing and fearless lan- 
 guage, the conduct of the English Government 
 and that of its creatures and tools at Dublin 
 Castle and in the Irish Parliament; while within 
 the walls of Parliament, Grattan, Flood, and 
 Lucas became a power, before whose unsparing 
 denunciation the weak and petty creatures were 
 gradually silenced and cowed ; and for the first 
 time in Irish history an able, independent, 
 powerful, and patriotic party grew up in the 
 Parliament of Ireland. 
 
 Flood and Lord Charlemont were the leaders 
 of a force of 60,000 volunteers, which had been 
 raised for the purpose of repelling the depreda- 
 tions of Paul Jones and other privateers. 
 Between Flood and Grattan a misunderstanding 
 
E MG LIS II MISRULE 
 
 S3 
 
 arose as to the advisability of disbanding the 
 Volunteers after the purpose for which they had 
 been raised was accomplished. Grattan was 
 for disbanding them, relying for the redress of 
 the wrongs of his country on a patriotic and 
 independent Parliament ; while Flood could not 
 conceal from himself the great advantage the 
 Irish nation would possess in dealing with 
 England with a force of 60,000 armed men at 
 its back. Grattan’s hopes rose high as one by 
 one the best spirits that composed the Parlia- 
 ment rallied to his side, until the patriotic party 
 — the Opposition, as it was called — became a 
 great power, not only in Parliament, but 
 throughout the country. And that indomitable 
 spirit, which might be suppressed but could not 
 be killed, which had come down from murdered 
 father to murdered son through so many gene- 
 rations, was again re-imbued with high aspira- 
 tions and hopes of liberty. 
 
 Grattan was now the leader of the Opposition 
 in the House, and there can be no doubt that 
 the armed power of Ireland was a strong argu- 
 ment with the English Government in the con- 
 sideration of the measures which were now 
 pressed upon it by the Patriotic Party. The 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 59 
 
 Volunteers were on the side of Grattan and his 
 followers, and it was no secret that they had 
 formed the resolution of advocating at the point 
 of the bayonet the concessions which were now 
 demanded. England knew this full well, and 
 being at the time at war with her American 
 Colonies, was in no position to resist the just 
 and reasonable demands now put forward. 
 Englishmen are perhaps better acquainted with 
 the history of the transactions which led to the 
 loss of the American Colonies, than they are 
 with those occurring in Ireland at that time. 
 They both contain lessons which are well worth 
 studying, and which the English nation would 
 do well to take seriously to heart at the present 
 time. In the one case justice was obtained by 
 force, in the other through fear. Grattan was 
 - not ignorant of the power he derived from the 
 Irish Army, and he probably bitterly repented 
 its destruction, brought about by himself, long 
 before the memorable occasion, when, gaunt and 
 pale, he was carried into the House to raise his 
 feeble voice against the act by which the Par- 
 liament of Ireland was wiped out of existence. 
 
 Some time previously steps had been taken 
 for the repeal of the Papists’ or Penal Code. 
 
6o 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 Another step was now taken, by passing an 
 Act which enabled Catholics to acquire lease- 
 holds for 999 years, and to alienate and deal 
 with them by will. An Act passed in Queen 
 Anne’s reign, which enabled a child turning 
 Protestant to obtain his father’s property, was 
 repealed. Some restrictions on trade were re- 
 moved at this time. 
 
 The Irish Parliament passed two resolutions, 
 one of which was that liberty to export its 
 woollen and other manufactures would be bene- 
 ficial to the country ; the other that liberty to 
 trade with the American Colonies and the West 
 Indies would be productive of great commer- 
 cial benefits to Ireland. These resolutions 
 were passed on to the English Parliament, 
 and measures at once introduced there to give 
 them effect. Nothing short of a great revolu- 
 tion had begun in the industrial and commercial 
 condition of Ireland by giving effect to the 
 above resolutions. 
 
 Grattan now brought forward three other 
 resolutions of the most important character, the 
 effect of which was in reality to make Ireland 
 an independent nation. 
 
 t. That the King, Lords, and Commons of 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 61 
 
 Ireland are the only powers competent to enact 
 laws to bind Ireland. 
 
 2. That the crown of Ireland is and ought to 
 be inseparably annexed to the Crown of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 3. That Great Britain and Ireland are in- 
 separably united under one sovereign, under 
 common and indissoluble ties of interest, loyalty, 
 and freedom. 
 
 The Commons refused to pass these resolu- 
 tions, and the Volunteers and others held great 
 meetings, and with the acclamation of the 
 country, denounced their so-called representa- 
 tives in Parliament. For the moment the 
 patriotic party was defeated, but a short time 
 subsequently Grattan again brought forward 
 the resolutions in the form of an address to the 
 King, praying for the repeal of the Act of the 
 6th Geo. I, entitled “An Act for the better 
 securing the dependency of Ireland upon the 
 crown of Great Britain.” This was carried, 
 and the Irish House of Commons voted 
 Grattan a grant of ,£50,000. The necessary 
 Acts were speedily passed through both Houses 
 in England, and Ireland was once more a free 
 gmd independent nation. 
 
62 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 In 1781 Ireland, for the first time, got a 
 Habeas Corpus Act. In this year, too, the 
 Bank of Ireland was established. Some 
 progress was also made in relaxing the laws 
 against the Roman Catholics. They were now 
 permitted to hold freehold property, and the 
 laws which deprived them of the power of 
 guardianship over their children were repealed ; 
 they were also allowed to have them educated 
 as they wished. Viewed in the light of our 
 present comparative political freedom these 
 appear but small instalments of their rights ; 
 but they were great concessions to the Catholics 
 of those days. 
 
 The creation of an independent Irish Parlia- 
 ment was followed by the election of a new 
 H ouse of Commons. It consisted of 300 
 members, of whom 73 were freely elected, and 
 the remainder were nominated by peers and 
 commoners. We should have little faith in 
 such a House of Commons in England; and, as 
 a representative assembly, it was little better 
 than a sham. But it was an independent 
 Parliament, with pow r er to make and unmake 
 laws, and could not but be animated with some 
 desire to legislate for the benefit of the nation. 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 63 
 
 The repeal of some of the most obnoxious 
 Acts forbidding the importation of Irish manu- 
 factures into England had been followed by the 
 establishment of duties, so heavy as to prac- 
 tically exclude Irish goods from the English 
 markets. In order to remedy this great in- 
 justice to Irish commerce, William Pitt sub- 
 mitted to the English Elouse of Commons the 
 following propositions : — 
 
 x. It was desirable to encourage trade and 
 regulate commerce. 
 
 2. Goods imported to either country were to 
 
 be granted full drawback on export to 
 the other. 
 
 3. Neither country should prohibit the export 
 
 of any product of the other. 
 
 4. The rates on each other’s product were to 
 
 be reduced to an equality. 
 
 5. As to any goods of home production 
 
 which might be charged with internal 
 duties, similar goods on being imported 
 might be charged with an amount equal 
 to such internal duty in addition to the 
 import duty. \ 
 
 6. No new import duties to be imposed by 
 
 qither country on the other’s products. 
 
6 4 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 7. The like provision as to export duties, 
 
 except as to corn, meal, flour, and 
 biscuits. All duties not then reciprocal 
 to be made so. 
 
 8. Neither country to pay bounties on ex- 
 
 ported articles. 
 
 9. Import duties to be laid on products of 
 
 foreign states, so as to protect home 
 products of each. 
 
 These were introduced into the Irish Par- 
 liament in 1785, and passed unanimously. But 
 such was the outcry from all the great towns in 
 England against these reasonable and just pro- 
 posals, that Pitt had to re-cast them in such a 
 manner that they were no longer acceptable to 
 the Irish Parliament, and they fell through. 
 Let Englishmen think of this as an illustration 
 of their sense of justice a hundred years ago. 
 
 The Irish Parliament, being composed of 
 Protestants and the nominees of peers and the 
 wealthy upper classes, was hand and glove with 
 the Castle officials, and amenable to instructions 
 from that source. The Lord Lieutenant was 
 directed to use his influence to prevent the 
 passing of laws of which the British Govern- 
 ment disapproved ; and thus the Irish Parlia- 
 
/.V IRELAND. 
 
 65 
 
 ment, though nominally free, was, in reality, 
 bound hand and foot, and as impotent for all 
 purposes for which a legislature exists, as it was 
 before the repeal of the Act, by which it became 
 independent. So far as the interests of the 
 nation were concerned, the Parliament was as 
 much the creature of Dublin Castle as it had 
 ever been. Notwithstanding this, the mere 
 fact of the great nominal change which had 
 been effected sent a thrill of gladness through 
 the length and breadth of Ireland, and the 
 people believed that a better day had dawned 
 for their country. 
 
 There is much diversity of opinion amongst 
 historians as to the condition of the country 
 during the existence of the nominally indepen- 
 pendent Parliament, — t.e., eighteen years pre- 
 ceding the Act of Union in 1800; but the 
 balance of favour must be given to this period. 
 There can be no doubt that this was the 
 happiest time in the life of Ireland since the 
 conquest of Henry II. And although there 
 was a failure of the crops, and great agricul- 
 tural depression in consequence, in 1784, Sir 
 Jonah Barrington, in his “ Historical Memoirs,” 
 writes, “ In this year the country was rapidly 
 
66 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 advancing to eminence. Commerce was im- 
 proving; the public debt light; the taxes incon- 
 siderable ; emigration had ceased ; and popula- 
 tion was augmenting. Nearly 200 nobles and 
 all the Commoners expended their rents amidst 
 those who paid them.” This, no doubt, is too 
 favourable a view to take; but it is indicative of 
 the new life and hope that had been infused 
 into the people. 
 
 The Roman Catholics, from their numerical 
 strength, were a great power in the country ; 
 and it was impossible for Parliament to go on 
 continually ignoring all their just claims. In 
 1792 a Bill was introduced and passed. 
 (1.) To allow all Roman Catholics the practice 
 and profession of the law. (2.) To allow them 
 entire and unrestrained power of educating 
 their children, without the necessity of such a 
 licence as had been provided for in the Act of 
 1782. (3.) To allow intermarriage between 
 
 Protestants and Roman Catholics. (4.) To 
 remove the restrictions on the number of ap- 
 prentices that a Roman Catholic might have in 
 his trade. It was also proposed to give the 
 Parliamentary Franchise to Catholics, to the 
 extent of enabling them to vote for Protestant 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 67 
 
 members ; but this was thought too great a 
 favour, and was accordingly rejected. 
 
 Protestants have incessantly heaped calumnies 
 upon the Catholics ; and have attributed to them, 
 as a body, the grossest ignorance and stupidity. 
 The following memorandum of their political 
 faith, issued in 1792, gives us a truer knowledge 
 of their intelligence and advanced political 
 thought than all the one-sided histories that 
 have been published. In every respect it is a 
 most remarkable document, the wisdom of 
 which has either been practically realized or is 
 to-day a part of the Liberal programme : — 
 
 The Catholics proposed that the Parliament 
 should be annual ; that for the purpose of 
 election the whole kingdom should be divided 
 into three hundred electorates, each formed by a 
 combination of parishes, and all as nearly equal 
 as possible in point of population ; that no 
 qualification with respect to property should be 
 required in the electors nor in the representa- 
 tives ; that every male of sound understanding, 
 of the full age of twenty-one years, and residing 
 in the electorate during the last six months 
 preceding the election, should be capable of 
 
 suffrage for a representative ; that to be quali- 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 fied for a seat in the House of Commons, a 
 man should be twenty-five years old, resident 
 within the kingdom, and holding neither place 
 nor pension under Government, and that such 
 representative should receive a reasonable 
 stipend for his attendance in Parliament. Men 
 whose political wisdom and foresight could pro- 
 duce such a document in 1792 were held by 
 the Protestants to be too stupid to be entrusted 
 with the franchise ! 
 
 In 1785 a society called the “ Peep o’ Day 
 Boys ” was formed amongst the Protestants, 
 whose object was to harass and persecute the 
 Catholics. They entered their homes at all 
 hours, night and day ; ransacked their houses ; 
 burnt their furniture ; destroyed their churches ; 
 and insulted and outraged their women. In 
 consequence of the brutal conduct of the Pro- 
 testants, their clergy found it difficult to collect 
 their tithes ; and for half a century and more 
 the tithes of the Protestant clergy were wrung 
 from an impoverished Roman Catholic people 
 by the bayonets of the British army. Truly a 
 noble occupation for British soldiers ! Every 
 thousand pounds taken from the starving 
 Catholics as tithes for Protestant clergymen has 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 69 
 
 cost the British taxpayer several thousands for 
 the support of the soldiers and policemen by 
 whom the tax had to be collected. And if we 
 add to this the cost of maintaining the army 
 and police for turning poor starving families 
 out of their miserable, wretched homes, the cost 
 to the people of England has been enormous. 
 I say miserable, wretched homes, for, judged by 
 any standard of civilized comfort, they are poor 
 and miserable ; but they are as dear to those 
 poor people who have grown up in them from 
 generation to generation as is the lordly home 
 of the aristocrat to him and his family. 
 
 It was the custom of the landlord or his 
 agent to pounce down upon the tenant just as 
 his potatoes were ready for digging, and seize 
 a great part of them for rent ; while the vigilant 
 and wary clergyman held an equal legal autho- 
 rity to a share of the poor miserable plot of 
 potatoes opposite the lowly mud cabin of poor 
 Pat and his little ones. And between these 
 two voracious sharks very frequently little was 
 left for the family, though it was the produce of 
 their labour and their only means of subsistence. 
 It was literally their only food. Think of it, 
 working men of England ; was it not a noble 
 
7 o 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 and Christian sight ? Picture to yourselves a 
 small plot of land reclaimed, perhaps, from the 
 bog, or, it may be, a barren tract rendered fer- 
 tile by long labour and perseverance in covering 
 it with earth brought from a distance ; the little 
 mud cabin at one end sheltering the family, 
 whose daily care is to tend the precious garden, 
 and watch the growth of that which is their 
 only hope of food through the long winter ; the 
 anxiety of the father and mother at rest as the 
 crop has escaped the blight and is ready for 
 digging : and then picture to yourselves the 
 look of hopeless despair on the faces of the 
 family as the landlord’s agent and the clergy- 
 man’s representative appear upon the scene, 
 and between them carry off the greater part 
 of the crop, leaving, in some cases, barely suffi- 
 cient to supply seed for the next year’s planting. 
 Think of this, I say, working men, whose lot, 
 though hard enough, has been cast in a happier 
 place ; and judge not too harshly the desperate 
 conduct which, though rarely, has sometimes 
 followed such barbarous and inhuman treatment. 
 
 In 1788 Grattan proposed a Select Com- 
 mittee to enquire into the whole subject of 
 tithes, which had become a source of danger to 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 7i 
 
 the peace of the country, and especially in 
 Munster; and when this was defeated he moved 
 a resolution intended to protect the poor fami- 
 lies from having their potatoes seized for tithes, 
 as described above ; but this also was rejected 
 by the house of landlords. 
 
 It w r as about this time that the first Orange 
 Lodge was formed. Orangemen were a society 
 styling themselves loyal to Church and State, as 
 established by William of Orange, and were the 
 sworn enemies of Catholics. To rob, or, better 
 still, to murder, a Catholic was held by Orange- 
 men to be the most meritorious of acts ; and, as 
 the Thugs of India recommended themselves to 
 their deity, Khali , by the sacrifice of the here- 
 tic, so the Orangemen propitiated their deity 
 in proportion to the number of Catholic scalps 
 they (metaphorically) carried at their girdle. 
 Grattan, though himself a Protestant, described 
 them as ferocious banditti, committing atrocities 
 in the name of God. 
 
 Pitt’s early efforts in behalf of Ireland having 
 been defeated by the King and his party, he 
 appears to have adopted an entirely different 
 line of conduct ; and Mr. Lecky does not hesi- 
 tate to declare that his later Irish policy was to 
 
72 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 corrupt and degrade, in order that he might 
 ultimately destroy the legislature of the country. 
 Whatever Pitt’s private feelings may have been 
 with regard to Ireland, his great object now 
 was to abolish the Irish Parliament, and to this 
 end he shaped his conduct. He had no means 
 of gaining information about Irish affairs other- 
 wise than through, as Mr. Dean says, “ the 
 foul channel of the Castle, where every man 
 looked upon the Irish as beasts for prey ; ” and 
 he may possibly have thought the solution of 
 the problem lay in a legislative union with 
 Great Britain. Be this as it may, he deter- 
 mined to bring it about ; and the means he 
 adopted were of the most disgraceful character 
 — so foul, indeed, that polite language cannot 
 adequately describe them. 
 
 Lord Cornwallis was viceroy, and Lord 
 Castlereagh was secretary at the time ; and 
 possibly two greater miscreants could not have 
 been found for the dirty work they had to do. 
 Respecting the latter, Lord Brougham said : — 
 “ Few men of more limited capacity or more 
 meagre acquirements than he possessed had 
 before his day risen to any station of eminence 
 in our free country.” But it was not that the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 73 
 
 man possessed the bovine intelligence of a fox- 
 hunting squire merely ; he was totally devoid of 
 all sense of moral decency ; and would do 
 unblushingly the most disgraceful things. He 
 was a compound of the basest elements in 
 human nature, without one redeeming feature 
 by which to rescue his character from utter 
 infamy. He possessed, moreover, a species of 
 low cunning, which was as useful for the work 
 in hand as his want of every vestige of moral 
 principle. In short, he was one of those 
 abandoned and loathsome wretches of whom 
 we occasionally read, but rarely meet with in 
 actual life, owing to the extreme rareness of 
 their production. 
 
 Such was the character of the man who was 
 selected as the chief instrument in robbing the 
 Irish nation of its Parliament. We have already 
 seen how that Parliament was composed ; and 
 we shall not be surprised to find that it was 
 ready to lend itself to any transaction, however 
 dishonourable, if sufficient inducements were 
 offered in the shape of monetary and other 
 bribes. Lord Castlereagh was accordingly 
 given a free hand ; and he set to work to ascer- 
 tain the price of every member’s vote for the 
 
74 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 abolition of the Irish Parliament, and its incor- 
 poration in the British Parliament. 
 
 The subject of the union was introduced into 
 the Irish House of Commons on the 22nd 
 January, 1799 ; but notwithstanding the lavish 
 distribution of pensions, titles, and monetary 
 bribes, the Government obtained a majority of 
 only one. This was not a satisfactory result, and 
 Pitt instructed his tools to obtain a respectable 
 majority at any cost. Twenty-six of the 
 members were created peers in payment for 
 their votes ; all those who held what were 
 called pocket boroughs received very heavy 
 bribes for their votes, the total amounting to 
 ,£1,500,000, besides the pensions which were 
 created. And every farthing of this was paid 
 by the Irish people ! This was adding insult to 
 injury with a vengeance. The peers, of course, 
 had to be heavily bribed. Lord Shannon 
 received £45,000; Marquis of Ely, £"45,000; 
 Lord Claremorris, .£23,000 ; Lord Belvidere, 
 £15,000; Sir H. Langrishe, £15,000, and so 
 on. Having now prepared the Irish Parliament 
 for a favourable vote for the Union, by whole- 
 sale bribery and corruption of the most shameful 
 and disgraceful character, the question was 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 75 
 
 again introduced, when 158 were for the Union 
 and 1 1 5 against it. 
 
 This was considered a satisfactory majority, 
 and the Irish Parliament ceased to exist. This 
 infamous transaction, in which the Irish people 
 had no voice whatever, except through their 
 small number of 73, who were freely elected, 
 and who all voted dead against it, is known as 
 the Act of Union ; and is the warrant on which 
 the English nation rests its claim to legislate 
 for Ireland in all her domestic concerns. This 
 Act of Union, obtained by means so foul and 
 dishonourable that no reputable writer has ever 
 dared to refer to it in favourable terms, is the 
 contract by which English politicians hold 
 themselves justified in denying to the Irish 
 nation the right to ask for that moderate mea- 
 sure of home rule which will enable Irishmen 
 to manage their own local affairs, without refer- 
 ence to Englishmen, who are necessarily igno- 
 rant of the Irish subjects on which, in the 
 English Parliament, they are called upon to 
 legislate. 
 
 Such is briefly the outline of the means by 
 which the Act of Union was brought about. 
 And I feel convinced that the Democracy of 
 
76 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 England has but to know the true nature of 
 this black and treacherous transaction to pro- 
 claim with a loud voice against the iniquitous 
 proceedings of the privileged classes, both 
 inside and outside of Parliament, who not only 
 turn a deaf ear to the just and righteous request 
 of the Irish people for a partial abolition of the 
 hated and infamous Act of Union, but are even 
 now forging fresh fetters, more tyrannous than 
 any preceding ones, for still further oppressing 
 and enslaving the long-abused people. 
 
 The cost of the Union to Ireland was, in 
 pensions alone, ,£60,000 a year ; this was in 
 addition to the £"1,500,000 capital. The con- 
 dition of the country may be inferred from the 
 fact that it was deemed necessary to keep up a 
 military force in Ireland of 137,590 men, at a 
 cost of £4,815,367. And, since the soldiers, 
 for the greater part, lived at free quarters upon 
 the poorer classes, a good portion of this sum 
 must have found its way into the pockets of the 
 officials. What with the rapacious official 
 rascals on the one side, and the brutal soldiers 
 on the other, the Irish were indeed ground 
 between two stones. Grattan made one of the 
 most powerful and eloquent speeches ever 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 77 
 
 uttered by man, against the Union ; but what 
 could it avail ? If all the orators in the world 
 had been rolled into one no effect could have 
 been made upon that corrupt mass. 
 
 In 1803 an outbreak occurred, headed by 
 Robert Emmett, but it was at once put down 
 by the Government. It was, in fact, but a 
 small affair, and would have passed almost 
 unnoticed, had it not been for the ferocious and 
 bloody revenge of the Government. Emmett 
 was but a youth just out of his teens. He was 
 an exceptionally and singularly gifted young 
 man, and devoted to his country. His speech 
 before his judge is a fine specimen of fearless, 
 eloquent oratory, and had his life been spared 
 great things might have been expected of him. 
 He could have made his escape, but being 
 passionately in love with Curran’s daughter, he 
 was captured while waiting for a last interview 
 with her. He was tried late at night, and 
 hanged early the next morning ! His tragic 
 and melancholy end has been the theme of 
 many a heart-stirring and pathetic song from 
 the best of Ireland’s poets. His memory is 
 still green in the hearts of all true Irishmen 
 and Irishwomen, and is likely to remain so. 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 78 
 
 The following beautiful melody, by Moore, 
 refers to Robert Emmett 
 
 Oh ! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, 
 
 Where, cold and unhonoured, his relics are laid : 
 
 Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed, 
 
 As the night-dews that fall on the grass o’er his head. 
 
 But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, 
 
 Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps ; 
 
 And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, 
 
 Shall long keep his memory green in our souls. 
 
 After the execution of Emmett Curran’s 
 daughter was taken abroad, in the hope that 
 fresh scenes would rouse her from her melan- 
 choly. The following, another of Moore’s, 
 relates to her : — 
 
 She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 
 
 And lovers around her, sighing ; 
 
 But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, 
 
 For her heart in his grave is lying. 
 
 She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, 
 
 Every note which he loved awaking : 
 
 Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, 
 
 How the heart of the minstrel is breaking. 
 
 He had lived for his love, for his country he died, 
 
 They were all that to life had entwined him : 
 
 Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, 
 
 Nor long will his love stay behind him. 
 
 Oh ! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, 
 
 When they promise a glorious morrow : 
 
 They’ll shine o’er her sleep like a smile from the west, 
 From her own lov’d island of sorrow. 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 79 
 
 The Government made the rising of Emmett 
 an excuse for suspending the Habeas Corpus 
 Act ; and the gaols were crowded with men and 
 boys, who were kept as criminals for two and 
 three years without any form of trial or inquiry 
 into their cases. Needless to say the innocent 
 and the guilty alike suffered under such a system. 
 Indeed no person was safe, for any spy or base 
 ruffian had but to give certain information to the 
 authorities, and the victims were at once seized 
 and thrown into prison, where the treatment 
 they received was deliberately planned to cause 
 madness and death. Fearful and terrible were 
 these houses of human torture, in which the 
 soul was torn from the body by the most hellish 
 cruelties, limited only by the power of the 
 victims to suffer. 
 
 Pitt made another attempt to befriend Ireland, 
 now that he had succeeded in depriving her of 
 her Parliament, but it so incensed the idiot-king, 
 George III., that the Minister was driven from 
 power, and never after, on resuming the reins 
 of office, spoke one word in her favour. And 
 Ireland dragged on a miserable existence under 
 Martial Law until his death in 1805. 
 
 Few persons can possibly have the slightest 
 
So 
 
 ENGLISh MISRULE 
 
 idea of the miseries of a people under law which 
 is administered by the military. Let anyone 
 consider for a moment the foolish, bombastic, 
 and brutal utterances of the chief generals of 
 our army, when they occasionally make speeches 
 in public, and ask himself what is likely to be 
 the condition of a people subject to their igno- 
 rant and ferocious rule. I do not speak of such 
 a chief as the Duke of Cambridge, he is simply 
 a poor harmless nondescript kind of old gentle- 
 man, dressed up in a cocked hat and feathers, 
 a sort of figurehead at which the public good 
 hurnouredly laugh, when, on stated occasions, his 
 well-known rotund figure (with the inevitable um- 
 brella) is seen. The only significant fact about 
 this punch-and-judy figurehead is the enormous 
 sum of money the people pay yearly for it. But 
 I refer to such men as “ our only general,” for 
 instance, whose nonsencical utterances of late 
 would shame an ordinary vestryman. Soldiers, 
 from the general downwards, must, of necessity, 
 be men of low intellects and brutal instincts, 
 with scarcely a glimmering of that moral con- 
 science and intellectual perception by which 
 men who advance human progress are charac- 
 terised. Otherwise they could never deliberately 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 81 
 
 hire themselves out for the murder of their 
 fellow man, and spend their lives in devising 
 means and perfecting themselves in the use of 
 instruments for the wholesale destruction of 
 their kind, against whom they can have no 
 possible cause of quarrel. 
 
 It is, moreover, an acknowledged fact that 
 the soldier must cut and slay without regard to 
 the morality or justice of the quarrel; his “duty” 
 does not embrace that consideration. And 
 when we cast our eyes over history and find 
 that nearly all wars, with scarcely an exception, 
 have been caused either by foolish and irres- 
 ponsible kings for their own dynastic purposes, 
 or by arrogant and ignorant so-called Statesmen, 
 and have been acts of wanton aggression on the 
 part of the instigators, I say that the men whose 
 business in life is to fight for such reckless and 
 criminal disturbers of the peace of the world, 
 are little higher in the scale of intelligence and 
 moral perception than the lowest and most de- 
 based of mankind. 
 
 When the public became aware of the fact 
 that George III. was an idiot, and it was no 
 longer possible to permit him to remain the 
 ruJer of England, that drunken profligate and 
 
82 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 debauchee, the Prince of Wales, was proclaimed 
 Regent, and the Irish fondly believed that a 
 great obstacle to the redress of some of their 
 greatest grievances was removed. 
 
 Daniel O’Connell now appeared upon the 
 troubled ocean of Irish politics. He, probably, 
 exercised a greater influence over the Irish 
 people than any man before or since his time. 
 The two great and burning questions were, 
 Repeal of the Union and Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion ; and O’Connell threw himself into them 
 with all the energy and ability of his enthusiastic 
 and powerful nature ; and never ceased to labour 
 in the cause until worn out and dying he set out 
 for Rome to obtain the blessing of the Pope, 
 but died on his way at Genoa, May 15th, 1847. 
 
 The Irish nation, never having consented to 
 the Union, began an agitation for the repeal of 
 the hated measure immediately after its consum- 
 mation ; and O’Connell never, during the whole 
 course of his life, ceased to advocate the restora- 
 tion of the Irish Parliament on College Green, 
 Dublin. The Irish people longed for the resto- 
 ration of its Parliament ; and never, from 1 800 
 to the present day, have they for one moment 
 given up the hope that this measure of justice 
 
/.V IRELAND. 
 
 83 
 
 would ultimately be done them. It is no new 
 and sudden demand, as some English politicians 
 would make the people of this country believe, 
 but, on the contrary, the continuation of that 
 cry for the redress of a long standing grievance, 
 which Ireland has never ceased to utter through 
 the ablest and best of her sons. 
 
 A Bill for the emancipation of the Catholics 
 passed the House of Commons in 1822, 
 1823 and 1825, but was thrown out in the 
 House of Lords. The House of Lords has 
 never been known to pass any Bill for the 
 benefit of the people, however necessary and 
 just, until thoroughly frightened by the angry 
 and threatening aspect of the nation. It is 
 the sworn enemy of all just and good legis- 
 lation ; and though it is a thoroughly rotten 
 and decayed institution, and has long lost all 
 active vitality, it contains an enormous capacity 
 for mischief, solely in virtue of the negative 
 power which is left to it. That the people con- 
 tinue to tolerate its existence is an instance of 
 the extreme difficulty there is in extirpating an 
 institution which has been long established, no 
 matter how unsuited to modern requirements, or 
 vicious and obstructive it may have become. 
 
84 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 The House of Lords is positively an insult to 
 the intelligence and manhood of England. 
 Its members will be rudely awakened one of 
 these days, and their gilded chamber will know 
 them no more. 
 
 O’Connell declared that although an Act of 
 Parliament forbade Roman Catholics to sit and 
 vote in the House of Commons, it did not pre- 
 vent their election ; and to test the truth of this 
 the Catholic Association, in combination with 
 the priests and people, held on one Sunday 
 1,500 simultaneous meetings. Thirty thousand 
 of these encamped outside Ennis, while an 
 army, provided with artillery, was waiting to 
 mow them down on the least provocation. The 
 result was that O’Connell was returned, and de- 
 clared a duly elected Member of Parliament. 
 
 In 1829 Sir Robert Peel introduced a Bill 
 for the emancipation of the Catholics. Petitions 
 against it were presented from all parts of 
 England, signed by millions of people, but it 
 passed for all that, and became law on the 
 13th April. The truth is, no responsible men 
 could be found to form a Government, and 
 even such an old Tory stickler as the Duke of 
 Wellington was obliged to confess the absolute 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 8S 
 
 necessity of admitting Catholics to the franchise. 
 The King, with characteristic royal stubborn- 
 ness, was to the last bitterly hostile to the Bill; 
 but, like others, he had to bend to the progress 
 of events. Catholics could now sit in Parlia- 
 ment, and vote for members of Parliament. 
 The labour that the country had gone through 
 to obtain this simple act of justice had been 
 enormous. 
 
 O’Connell, now in Parliament, carried the 
 struggle for the Repeal of the Union and the 
 restoration of the Parliament on College Green 
 into the camp of the enemy. He was a great 
 orator, and could sway the passions of men, but 
 he could not get through the thick hide of the 
 British legislator to his heart, to induce him to 
 do this act of justice. O’Connell formed 
 associations all over Ireland, but as soon as they 
 were formed they were declared illegal by the 
 Government, and dispersed. 
 
 The Tithe War now began in right earnest. 
 The question of tithes is becoming a serious one 
 in England, but no experience of tithes in this 
 country will enable the people to form even an 
 idea of the oppressive nature of the exaction in 
 Ireland. The people were simply unable to pay 
 
86 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 the amounts demanded, and no earthly power 
 could wring it from them. The Government 
 and the clergy must have been well aware of 
 this ; and yet they entered into a compact by 
 which the ordinary course of law was superseded 
 by military violence. The Treasury advanced 
 the tithes to their friends, the clergy, and became, 
 instead, the creditors of the people. The 
 military were employed in the collection, and for 
 the recovery of ,£12,000, no less a sum than 
 ,£28,000 was expended in military operations, 
 and hundreds of lives sacrificed. 
 
 The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin 
 declared, in the House of Lords, that the 
 system under which tithes were levied could 
 only be continued at the point of the bayonet, 
 and by a state of chronic civil war. The tithes 
 were a part of the great agrarian question ; 
 their removal has not brought much relief 
 to the tenant. That Roman Catholics should 
 have been compelled to pay for the support of 
 a Protestant Church, with its high salaried 
 ministers, is probably one of the greatest 
 religious o arages ever known. The Roman 
 Catholics, who were ten times more numerous 
 than the Protestants, bitterly and passionately 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 87 
 
 resented it ; and long and fierce have been the 
 conflicts to which the flagrant injustice has 
 given rise. 
 
 Some of the Bishops received as much as 
 ,£ 1 2,000 a year, and 102 benefices were worth 
 ,£2,800 a year each. The congregations of 
 many of these wealthy livings consisted of the 
 parson’s family and half-a-dozen others. When 
 these incomes were reduced, owing to the 
 impossibility of collecting tithes, the Government 
 paid the arrears to the clergy, and charged the 
 amount, about .£1,000,000, to the land. 
 Exchequer Bills were issued to raise the money. 
 This was merely changing the form of extorting 
 the tithes from the people, since the landlords 
 wrung the amount from them by raising the 
 tenants’ rents ; and as most of the people, as we 
 have seen, were obliged either to possess land 
 or starve, they had no alternative but to submit. 
 
 In 1834 O’Connell brought forward, in the 
 House of Commons, a motion for the Repeal of 
 the Union. Sir Robert Peel argued that there 
 could be no security for “law and property” as 
 long as Mr. O’Connell retained a, 7 influence 
 over the Irish people. Lord Salisbuiq and his 
 followers pursue the same line now in regard to 
 
88 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 Mr. Parnell. It has always been the cry of the 
 British Government to mistrust those whom the 
 Irish nation specially honour and trust. The 
 names of O’Connell and Parnell are dear to 
 nine-tenths of the Irish race all over the world. 
 They are hated and reviled by the majority of 
 the governing classes in England. The impar- 
 tial and intelligent reader can draw but one 
 conclusion from such facts. 
 
 We may mention here that the ownership of 
 land at this time was divided between Catholics 
 and Protestants in the proportion of 10,500,000 
 acres owned by Protestants and 645,000 owned 
 by Catholics, though the Catholic population 
 was ten times more numerous than the Protes- 
 tant ! 
 
 The condition of Ireland was in no respects 
 improved by the Union ; indeed, it was, if pos- 
 sible, more unsettled than ever it had been at 
 any period during its long and troubled life. 
 The Act of Union had intensified all the evils 
 from which the country had previously suffered ; 
 and, in addition, several others had been added. 
 Every kind of savage legislation had been 
 tried, and all had signally failed. Even the 
 Marquis of Wellesley was obliged to acknow- 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 89 
 
 ledge that force was no remedy for the griev- 
 ances of a people. In 1834 he gave the follow- 
 ing description of the condition of the country : 
 “ A complete system of legislation, with the 
 most prompt, rigorous, and severe executive 
 power — sworn, equipped, and armed for all 
 purposes of savage punishment — is established 
 in almost every district. . . The combination 
 
 surpasses the law in rigour, promptitude, and 
 efficacy, and it is more sane to violate the law 
 than to obey it.” That description applies as 
 truthfully and as accurately to every district in 
 Ireland at this moment as it did fifty-three years 
 ago, when it was given by the Duke of Wel- 
 lington. He declared it was more sane to 
 violate the law than to obey it ; and every man 
 who loves right and justice must admit that in 
 Ireland to-day it is “more sane to violate the 
 law than to obey it.” 
 
 Of the many curses to Ireland the magis- 
 trates have not been the least. We have a 
 slight taste of them in England, where they are 
 under the powerful, restraining influence of 
 public opinion. Yet even here not a week 
 passes by without some of their sentences out- 
 raging the public sense of justice. In the sister 
 
go 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 island they have, and always have had, a “ free 
 hand;” and their doings, if truthfully chronicled, 
 would make one’s hair stand on end. When 
 Mr. Drummond — a noble-hearted and just man 
 — was Under-Secretary in Ireland, a letter 
 was addressed by certain Tipperary magistrates 
 to the Lord Lieutenant, complaining of the 
 fearful increase of crime, and instancing certain 
 and specific attacks which they alleged had 
 been made upon gentlemen. Mr. Drummond, 
 after diligent enquiry, found that their state- 
 ments were a tissue of deliberate falsehoods, 
 intended probably as an excuse or warrant for 
 the introduction of more stringent and coercive 
 measures. Their statements were, in fact, a 
 part of that systematic magisterial procedure, by 
 which material is manufactured which enables 
 a Salisbury Government to justify their inces- 
 sant demands for stringent and severe legisla- 
 tion. Mr. Drummond was the first, and in all 
 probability the only, high official that has ever 
 tested the truth of the reports of Irish magis- 
 trates. 
 
 Mr. Drummond wrote the magistrates a 
 letter, in which he pointed out the untruthful- 
 ness of their statements ; and read them a 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 9i 
 
 lecture on their neglect of duty and generally 
 disgraceful conduct to the poor, so stinging and 
 severe that Lord Donoughmore, the Lord 
 Lieutenant of the county, to whom it was 
 addressed, decided, with the approval of his 
 brother magistrates, to suppress it. On the 
 motion of Mr. Hume, however, it was laid on 
 the table of the House of Commons, and, being 
 reprinted, was disseminated throughout Ireland. 
 It created a tremendous uproar, and was 
 characterised by the magistrates as an unfeeling 
 and deliberate insult. Mr. Deane says 
 “Unfeeling! If only the landlords could have had 
 measured to them the measure they meted then, 
 and for a dozen years more, to the poor 
 peasantry, they might have learnt something 
 about feelings.” It is to such unscrupulous 
 fabricators of false information that the Salisbury 
 Government’s Coercion Bill gives the power to 
 imprison, without trial, for six months, with 
 hard labour, any Irishman against whom they 
 or any other vile wretches may make an 
 accusation ! 
 
 In 1840 O’Connell formed another associa- 
 tion, -called the National Loyal Repeal Associa- 
 tion. It was in alliance with the temperance 
 
92 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 movement, the members of which numbered 
 upwards of 2,000,000. Monster meetings were 
 held in favour of separation from the legislative 
 control of England. At Mullingar, on the 14th 
 May, upwards of 100,000 persons assembled to 
 demonstrate in favour of the Repeal of the 
 Union. At this meeting the Bishop of Ardagh 
 declared that all the Bishops in Ireland were 
 Repealers. Lord Trench and others were 
 removed from the commission of the peace for 
 taking part in this movement. 
 
 Again, on the 15th August it is said that 
 250,000 people assembled at Tara, and declared 
 with one voice their desire for Home Rule. 
 The movement had now become so popular that 
 meetings were being held all over Ireland, and 
 such meetings as are rarely seen in any country. 
 The Government got frightened, and issued a 
 proclamation forbidding them. O’Connell issued 
 an address to the people requesting them not to 
 assemble, or in any way run counter to the 
 authorities. The Irish people knew from long 
 and bitter experience that “obeying the law” 
 would bring no relief to their grievances; and as 
 O’Connell would never countenance any infringe- 
 ment of the edicts of authority, he lost much of 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 93 
 
 his influence with the more fearless of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 Notwithstanding O’Connell’s peaceful and 
 constitutional method of agitation, and his con- 
 stant denunciation of opposition to authority, he 
 was arrested and tried on a charge of conspiracy, 
 sedition, and hnlawfully assembling. He was, 
 of course, found guilty by a packed jury, and 
 sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a fine 
 of ,£2,000. And bail was required in ,£5,000 
 and two sureties of ,£2,500 each to keep the 
 peace for seven years. The judgment being 
 bad in law was upset on appeal to the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 The national food of Ireland, as is well 
 known, is the potato, and if this fails the food 
 of the people is gone. Having no money they 
 are literally without subsistence or the means ol 
 procuring it when bad seasons for the potato 
 crop overtake them. Partial failure was no 
 uncommon thing, and the poor people were 
 familiar enough with scarcity and want, but 
 nothing approaching 1845-7 had ever been 
 known before. Just before this terrible blight 
 the population of Ireland was in round numbers 
 eight and a quarter millions. I cannot do better 
 
4 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 than give Mr. Deane’s description of this terrible 
 visitation. 
 
 “ Nothing had ever occurred like the blight of 
 1845-7. . . . When it came it seemed as though 
 the blast of a simoom had passed over the land. 
 The crop was an unusually heavy one, and the 
 anticipations of harvest were joyous. When 
 the strange visitation came, and whole tracts of 
 the potato growth were changed, sometimes in 
 a single night, from smiling luxuriance to a 
 shrivelled and blackened waste. Altogether 
 the blight did its work in a fortnight. But the 
 brave Paddy did not sink under the blow. He 
 did what he could, he hoped what he might. 
 The crop was heavy, some good food was to be 
 found in it, and by going on short commons, by 
 spending nothing, and going cold and almost 
 naked, they could plant for next year. But in 
 the winter the potatoes were found to be rotting 
 in pit and storehouse. Many a family suc- 
 cumbed to cold, and famine, and disease, but all 
 tried to struggle on and live, and a bright 
 prospect smiled once more upon them as the 
 summer sun shone, and the fields looked verdant 
 and luxuriant once more. But once more, and 
 even more suddenly — in a night — the angel of 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 95 
 
 despair swept over the land, and when men 
 awoke their fields were blasted and dead, and 
 no portion of their life-sustenance escaped. 
 Even in their own brave hearts were dismay, 
 paralysis, and death ; a sort of stupor fell upon 
 them. If one spoke to them they could not 
 answer ; they hung their heads ; they could not 
 be roused ; they could but go in and close their 
 cabin doors and die. Into the towns and cities 
 some made their way, and, arriving, sat down 
 in doorways to rest, and wait, and die. Emi- 
 grant ships were loaded with those who got 
 help to escape from the angel of death, but 
 there, too, in the crowds, the filth, and the 
 horrrors, the relentless King of Terrors claimed 
 them for his own. Black ’47 was a year of woe 
 inconceivable and unutterable. It cost Ireland 
 in human beings, through emigration and death, 
 two millions of persons, and the population has 
 gone on decreasing ever since. The people 
 were gone, and Repeal was dead. Aye, and 
 so was the Liberator (O’Connell). When the 
 nation was in the throes of death the old man 
 broke down — his brain could not bear the strain. 
 He hastened away to find rest in the South.” 
 He died, as we have said, on his way to Rome. 
 
g6 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 Such another picture of suffering is scarcely 
 to be found in the pages of European history. 
 It appals the heart to think of it, and yet, we 
 have it on official record, it was at this very 
 time that the landlords mercilessly enforced 
 their “ rights ” of turning the poor out of house 
 and home! Immediately after this terrible 
 famine no fewer than 263,000 families, consist- 
 ing of 1,841,000 persons, were evicted / Surely 
 the world has not often bred such deliberately 
 inhuman monsters as history shows the Irish 
 landlords to have been. 
 
 Lord John Russell said in Parliament, speak- 
 ing of these evictions : “ They were turned out 
 of their wretched dwellings, without pity and 
 without refuge.” And he added, “ we have 
 made Ireland — I speak it deliberately — we have 
 made it the most depraved and the most miser- 
 able country in the world ; but we are callous 
 to our own ignominy, and to the results of our 
 misgovernment.” As to the manner in which 
 these evictions were carried out, Lord S. G. 
 Osborne, in his “Gleanings in Ireland,” says 
 the evictions of the starved and dying peasantry 
 took place in such circumstances that were but 
 one such case to happen in England there 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 97 
 
 would be no peace in the press till the landlord, 
 sheriff, bailiff, and all the posse had taken their 
 trial for manslaughter. 
 
 Hitherto there had been little or no united 
 action between the Catholics and the Protestants, 
 but the time had now arrived when religious 
 differences were to be merged in the great 
 question of political action. William Smith 
 O’Brien, a Protestant, and a Member of Parlia- 
 ment, gave prominence to the doctrine that 
 religion was no sufficient basis for political 
 action; and since then Protestants and Catholics 
 have worked together for the attainment of 
 common ends. 
 
 The national aspiration for the restoration of 
 the Parliament, which had always been a living 
 and active principle, now took active form in 
 the formation of “Young Ireland” and the 
 “ Fenian Brotherhood.” The former associa- 
 tion was founded by Messrs. C. G. Duffy, 
 T. O. Davis, and John Blake Dillon, by whom 
 the newspaper, The Nation , was started. Their 
 motto was “ Educate, that you may be free” — 
 a better motto no association ever adopted. 
 John Mitchell, who was connected with The 
 Nation in its early days, became impatient of its 
 
 H 
 
5 8 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 peace policy, and being unable to persuade his 
 colleagues to a more warlike . course, retired, 
 and started a paper of his own— The United 
 Irishman — m which he preached a policy of 
 insurrection. 
 
 Mitchell was quickly • arrested, tried, and 
 sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. 
 O’Brien, Duffy, and others were also arrested ; 
 the former was sentenced to death, which was 
 eventually commuted to transportation for life ; 
 against the latter no conviction could be 
 obtained, though he was tried three times, and 
 the Government used the utmost efforts to 
 secure a conviction. For nearly a year state 
 trials filled the courts, and death sentences 
 spread dismay among the people. 
 
 In 1850 the condition of the people was one 
 of. extreme poverty and weakness,, owing to the 
 great' famine' through which - they had recently 
 passed. • The landlords in many cases took 
 advantage of their helpless . condition . to, .clear 
 them-- off their - estates •; • and it will not surprise 
 us to learn that much agrarian .crime resulted. 
 Mr. John Bright; in the House of .Commons, 
 urged the Government to legislate for landlord 
 and tenant ; but as he appealed to those who 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 99 
 
 were themselves landlords, or intimately con- 
 nected with landlordism, and the Nationalist 
 party in the House of Commons— about half-a- 
 dozen — was too weak and insignificant to give 
 any trouble, the Government treated the matter 
 with its customary indifference, and nothing 
 was done. Landlords went on evicting and the 
 people suffering. The soldier and the police- 
 man were everywhere at work arresting 
 “ suspects ” and unroofing the hovels of the 
 poor ; the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, 
 and military violence took the place of law ; 
 a soldier might run his bayonet through the 
 heart of man, woman, or child, or a policeman 
 dash out their brains with his baton, and no 
 punishment follow the murderous deeds ; and 
 this only a few short years ago ! Englishmen 
 who are unacquainted with Irish history will 
 question the truth of these statements ; but 
 unfortunately they are facts of history about 
 which there can be no doubt. 
 
 The celebrated O’Donovan Rossa in 1858 was 
 instrumental in starting another society called 
 the Phoenix Club, one of the leading members 
 ©f which was James Stephens, who, a short time 
 subsequently, organized the “ Fenian Brother- 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 hood.” The name is derived from Fin or Fion, 
 who was the leader of the Irish national militia 
 seventeen centuries ago. The object of the 
 Fenians was separation from England. Rossa 
 and many others were arrested, “tried,” and 
 transported for life. Since his liberation he has 
 never ceased to try and pay back to England 
 the debt he owes her, for the treatment he 
 received while in prison, which is said to have 
 been of an unspeakably cruel and barbarous 
 character. Thanks to his iron constitution 
 which kept him alive through all the hardships 
 he had to undergo, he is still the unsubdued and 
 implacable foe of the tyrant of his country. As 
 to the accusations that have been brought 
 against him by the English press, of robbing 
 the societies he has been connected with, they 
 are but a part of those lies, in the manufacture 
 of which the press of this country indulges when 
 writing on Irishmen or Irish subjects. 
 
 The Fenians became a considerable force, 
 especially in America, which was proved in 
 1866 by their invasion of Canada. Had it not 
 been for the prompt action taken by the 
 Government of the United States, the Canadian 
 Government would undoubtedly have been 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 ioi 
 
 overthrown, and Irishmen would have been 
 master of the situation. The possession of 
 Canada would have given them an incalculable 
 advantage, inasmuch as it would have supplied 
 them with a country in which to raise, equip, 
 organize, and drill an army of Irishmen, against 
 whom the British arms would have been 
 powerless. Probably many thousands of Irish- 
 men in the British army would be only too glad 
 to join such an army of their countrymen in 
 such a cause. Men and money would not be 
 wanting for the formation of an army, which 
 could not only take Ireland and hold it against 
 the power of England, but would be able to 
 inflict considerable injury upon us, and ravage 
 the country from John O’Groats to Land’s 
 End. 
 
 In possession of Canada, or other suitable 
 ground, it would be no difficult matter for 
 the Irish people all over the world to raise 
 an army of 100,000 men, every one of whom 
 would be animated with the most bitter hatred 
 of England, and the most intense enthusiasm 
 for the cause in which he was called upon, by 
 the long and bitter wrongs of his country, to 
 fight. I believe the Irish people could command 
 
102 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 a quarter of a million men if necessary ; and 
 against an army composed of such men what 
 hope would there be for our poor army, com- 
 posed as it is for the greater part of weak, 
 stunted, half-starved hirelings from the slums 
 of our towns and cities ; and led by such a 
 general as the Bobadil of our army ? 
 
 The English fire-eaters would probably say, 
 we command the seas, and would not allow 
 them to land either in England or in Ireland ; 
 but experience proves that difficulties frequently 
 vanish before the resolute will of determined 
 men. And, moreover, it is not at all an unlikely 
 thing that England may be engaged in 
 hostilities with some great nation in the near 
 future. We must bear in mind also that there 
 has recently been imported another element 
 into the Irish question with which we shall have 
 to reckon. During the last thirty or forty years 
 an enormous Irish party has been growing up 
 in America. The many thousands of children 
 that went to America after the famine of ’47, 
 took with them an undying hatred of England ; 
 and they and their children are prepared to 
 make any sacrifice in the cause of Ireland. 
 The Irish nation is no longer confined to the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 103 
 
 little island that- bears the name of Ireland, but 
 exists in millions in America and elsewhere, all 
 animated with the same hope and the same 
 determination. In Ireland they know this, and 
 feel that for the first time in their long struggle 
 they do not stand alone. The sympathies of the 
 liberty-loving American people are with them ; 
 the Democracy of England, Scotland and Wales 
 is with them ; the moral conscience of the 
 world is on their side ; but the glazed-eyed 
 boobies of the priviliged classes in England do 
 not see this ; they never see anything but their 
 own selfish interests, and as long as their 
 voice predominates the people cannot hope 
 for justice. 
 
 Most of the rebellious attempts of the Irish 
 have been marked by folly, weakness, and 
 treachery. In nearly every case some informer 
 has upset their plans, if plans they could be 
 called, in which the utter impossibility of success 
 must have been apparent to every one con- 
 cerned. The projected attack on Chester Castle 
 was a piece of childish nonsense, and the 
 attempted rescue of Kelly and another little 
 better than madness. It will be remembered by 
 many that Kelly and another were being con- 
 
104 
 
 ENGL/S A MISRULE 
 
 veyed to prison in a police van, when a number 
 of armed men shot the horses and tried to break 
 open the door. Police-sergeant Brett received 
 a mortal wound as he was looking through the 
 keyhole from the inside. The shot was fired 
 into the lock for the purpose of breaking open 
 the door. Many arrests were made, and five 
 men were tried for murder. They were all 
 found guilty and sentenced to death. One owed 
 his life to the brave intervention of a newspaper 
 reporter, who conclusively proved his innocence, 
 while another was spared because he was an 
 American ! Any number of Irishmen might be 
 judicially murdered with impunity; there was no 
 one to call the murderers to account ; but with an 
 American citizen the case was very different ; 
 and England showed in this instance, as in a 
 good many others of late, that discretion is the 
 better part of valour. The other three were 
 executed in spite of the protestations of such 
 men as John Stuart Mill, John Bright, and 
 others, who strongly represented to the Govern- 
 ment the folly and guilt of allowing the sentence 
 to be carried out. It was a violation of British 
 law, of justice and humanity ; but — the victims 
 •were only Irishmen. 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 tos 
 
 The land laws of Ireland are probably not 
 much worse than those of England. In both 
 countries the land is rapidly going out of cultiva- 
 tion in consequence of those laws. In Ireland 
 there have been a good many tinkering Land 
 Bills, but the real evils have not been touched 
 by them ; and there is little hope that any 
 legislation in this direction will mitigate the 
 distress of the agricultural people until the crisis 
 arrives, and landlordism is swept away for ever. 
 Day by day more land goes out of cultivation ; 
 between the landlords and the tenants a bitter 
 strife is constantly maintained, and it is intensi- 
 fied a hundredfold on the part of the tenants by 
 the Government’s lending to the landlords the 
 military and the police forces to carry out their 
 evictions. 
 
 The English public is now tolerably familiar 
 with the barbarous cruelties practised by the 
 landlords and their agents in evicting the poor 
 from their homes. The last device is to pour 
 petroleum over the straw roof of the cabin from 
 which the family is to be driven, and then set 
 fire to it ! The dead and the dying have been 
 repeatedly carried out on stretchers and laid on 
 the bare, cold, damp ground, without covering 
 
io6 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 of any kind. And the horrors have been such 
 that the soldiers and police have stood and 
 wept at the sights of misery and suffering of 
 which they were compelled to be, in a measure, 
 the unwilling agents. Over and over again 
 they have raised subscriptions among them- 
 selves on the spot for the poor victims of 
 evictions. While the landlords had the power 
 in their hands, before the National League was 
 established, none dared give shelter to an 
 evicted family, under penalty of being them- 
 selves turned out of house and home. Every 
 species of diabolical ingenuity was devised by 
 the landlords to punish and torture their help- 
 less victims. And it is a marvel that they have 
 escaped as they have the righteous vengeance 
 of an outraged people. The Nihilists of 
 Russia would have made short work of them 
 long ago. Indeed, if the stern, self-sacrificing 
 spirit of Nihilism had animated any consider- 
 able number of Irishmen, England would have 
 been spared the black pages of history which 
 her truthful historians are compelled to write. 
 
 It should be mentioned that the project of 
 Home Rule has not always been confined to 
 one party. Under Mr. Isaac Butt’s leadership 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 107 
 
 of the Irish party in the House of Commons 
 the ideas of Home Rulers were quite different 
 to those held by the party now. Originally the 
 interests of the privileged classes predominated ; 
 these have given place to broader views, 
 embracing the welfare of the people and of the 
 entire nation. 
 
 In 1875 Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell entered 
 Parliament. His cool, calm, deliberate conduct 
 soon marked him out as the most able and fit to 
 lead his party. Under his leadership the Irish 
 party has become a great power in the British 
 Parliament ; and it is the beloved and trusted 
 representative of the Irish nation. The Irish 
 members have gradually fought their way to the 
 front with marked ability and indomitable per- 
 severance ; and have at length silenced those 
 loud and boisterous British legislators, whose 
 voices were never heard except to shout and 
 roar and laugh when an Irish member was 
 addressing the House. Most of those roarers 
 are now cowed and silenced, and they submis- 
 sively perform the humble functions befitting 
 their native intelligence — viz., vote as they are 
 directed by their leaders. 
 
 The potato crops of 1877-78 were very short. 
 
lo8 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 but the following year, 1879, was the worst that 
 had been known in the generation ; and, fol- 
 lowing the two previous bad years, produced an 
 immense amount of poverty and distress. Mr. 
 Michael Davitt indicated the true source of all 
 the agrarian troubles of his country, and to him 
 belongs the honour of having first advocated a 
 doctrine which alone can solve the agrarian 
 difficulties. He boldly declared that “rent for 
 land, in any circumstances, prosperous times or 
 bad times, was an unjust and immoral tax upon 
 the industry of the people.” And he advocated 
 the nationalization of the land as the true and 
 only effectual solution of the problem. Mr. 
 Parnell, in opposition to this, proposed peasant 
 proprietorship — a scheme utterly unsound and 
 futile. The land was to be purchased from the 
 landlords and given to another class of men, 
 who would be the absolute owners, and differ 
 from the former only in respect to cultivating 
 their land themselves. Peasant proprietorship 
 is a scheme in favour of landlords, and is by 
 them heartily desired, as it would enable them 
 to obtain an enormous sum of money from the 
 nation for that which the growing intelligence 
 of the people is rapidly teaching them ought 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 109 
 
 never to have been appropriated as private 
 property, and which cannot be much longer so 
 held. 
 
 It would be the greatest injustice to the people 
 to compel them to buy the land from the land- 
 lords, and present it to the peasants, or to any 
 one else. Apart from this, ownership in land 
 is unjust, and opposed to the highest interest of 
 the community, which is an unanswerable argu- 
 ment against it. If nationalized it would belong 
 to the entire body of the people of the nation, 
 and the rent paid by cultivators would go to- 
 wards national expenditure. To cultivate the 
 soil is paramount to every other consideration, 
 and it is the bounden duty of the people, in 
 every country, to take possession of their land. 
 
 Whatever arguments there may be in favour 
 of private ownership in other kinds of property, 
 they cannot apply to land, which, unlike other 
 kinds, is the labour of no man, and is essential 
 to the existence of all men. It is much to be 
 regretted that Mr. Davitt was persuaded to give 
 up the advocacy of his scheme, and fall in v/ith 
 Mr. Parnell’s views. I feel quite certain that 
 Mr. Davitt’s real opinions on the subject are not 
 altered in the slightest ; but he probably was 
 
no 
 
 ENGLISH MISR ULE 
 
 influenced by considerations of expediency in 
 consenting to drop his scheme in favour of Mr. 
 Parnell’s. For such a man as Mr. Davitt to 
 break from the Irish party would weaken it 
 greatly. He is a man of whom any nation 
 might justly feel proud. His mind is compre- 
 hensive and profound ; and, while he is second 
 to none as a patriot, his heart is great enough 
 to feel for the struggling classes in England as 
 well as in Ireland ; and he plainly sees that the 
 interests of both are identical. 
 
 The necessity of making land national pro- 
 perty is fast becoming as great in England as it 
 is now in Ireland, and no man knows this better 
 than Mr. Davitt, or has spoken out more boldly 
 upon the subject. Justice to the people, either 
 of Ireland or of England, will never be done by 
 the upper and middle classes. The Democracies 
 of the two countries must combine, and fight 
 it out with the privileged classes, who are the 
 real obstructors of all progress. ' The sooner 
 the English and the Irish working men re- 
 cognize this fact the sooner will they be on the 
 toad to a better state of existence. The greatest 
 sign of hope for the future of both peoples is 
 that they are now beginning to know' each 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 m 
 
 other ; and the English public is now for the 
 first time learning the truth about the cruel 
 tyranny and misrule practised for so many 
 generations in Ireland by the upper classes in' 
 England. The frantic efforts, the fabricated 
 charges, the foul and lying aspersions of the 
 Times and the smaller fry of a part of the press 
 in England are no longer able to hide from the 
 people the real facts. The truth is out at last ; 
 and the hired crew of rascally scribblers and 
 defamers who have battened on the miseries of 
 the poor for so long, now stand exposed to the 
 light of day in all the ugly deformity of their 
 loathsome nature. 
 
 The Land League was projected by Mr. 
 Davitt in 1879. In accordance with the views 
 of Mr. Parnell, its object was to purchase the 
 land for the people ; and both Mr, Davitt and 
 Mr. Parnell lectured i-n America and elsewhere 
 for the purpose of raising, the necessary money 
 -r^a hopeless and' impossible task. The League 
 soon had branches all over the country, and was 
 becoming a. power even in England-, where 
 numerous branches were, formed. •• It . had .the 
 good effect of turning the eyes of the English 
 people to the shameful condition of the land in 
 
1 12 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 this country, and an active agitation began for 
 land nationalization, which will go on w r ith 
 increased activity as soon as Home Rule is 
 granted for Ireland. The Land League was 
 recognized by the ruling classes as a dangerous 
 enemy to landlordism throughout the United 
 Kingdom, and the authorities lost no time in 
 suppressing it. It was declared an illegal asso- 
 ciation, and the Government took the most 
 extraordinary pains to have every branch of it 
 suppressed and rooted out. 
 
 During its brief existence the landlords were 
 acting in the most atrocious manner in turning 
 the poor out of their homes, and razing their 
 houses to the grounds — houses which the occu- 
 piers themselves had built. In order to do this 
 with the greater impunity the landlords had 
 induced their friends in power to seize and im- 
 prison the most eminent of the Irish leaders ; 
 and accordingly Messrs. Davitt, Dillon, Parnell, 
 Healy, Sexton, O’Kelly, and one thousand 
 besides, were arrested and thrown into gaol. 
 But the landlords did not have it all their own 
 way. From their prison the leaders issued the 
 famous No- Rent Manifesto, and from one end 
 of Ireland to the other tenants refused to pay 
 
/A l RE LA NR. 
 
 «3 
 
 rent while their leaders were incarcerated in 
 gaol. This quickly brought the landlords to 
 their senses, and again they went crying to their 
 friends, the Government ; this time, however, 
 for the release of the leaders , whose advice from 
 their prison cells had been so potent as to stop 
 the payment of all rent. 
 
 The Irish people rallied round their trusty 
 leaders, and the British Government, with all 
 its power, was helpless to move a finger until 
 the imprisoned patriots were released. The 
 members went back to their places in Parlia- 
 ment — not however with the air of men who 
 had just come out of prison cells, but with that 
 of men who had achieved a moral victory ; and 
 no one felt this more keenly than their gaolers, 
 whom they again confronted in Parliament, and 
 whose shamefaced and humiliated appearance 
 was in striking contrast with the bearing of 
 their victims. 
 
 The suppression of the Land League gave 
 rise to the formation of another and far more 
 influential association. In 1882 a conference 
 of Irish National Parties took place in Dublin ; 
 and it was resolved to unite all sections of 
 Nationalists in a new organization, under the 
 
1 1 4 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 name of the Irish National League. The 
 objects were “National Self-Government, 
 Extension of the Parliamentary and Municipal 
 Franchise, and the development and encourage- 
 ment of the labour and industrial interests ot 
 Ireland.” The National League has, however, 
 been active in every department of Irish life, 
 and has done a vast amount of good in counter- 
 acting evictions, and other oppressive measures 
 of the landlords, who roar with demoniac fury at 
 the very name of the League. To hundreds of 
 evicted families it has rendered timely monetary 
 and other assistance, and has thus been the 
 means of saving from starvation many who 
 must without such aid have perished. Wherever 
 an eviction is to take place members of the 
 League are present, and the effect has been to 
 mitigate those cruelties with which such scenes 
 were formerly accompanied. The greatest 
 ruffian among the landlords hesitates now 
 to burn the roof over the head of a dying 
 mother and starving children, knowing that 
 the League will expose his conduct to the 
 indignation of the world. Notwithstanding the 
 sure exposure, however, occasionally, as at 
 Glenbeigh quite recently, a thrill of horror is 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 Ir 5 
 
 sent through the country by a repetition of the 
 heartless evictions of the past. 
 
 “ Eighty starving families at Glenbeigh were 
 thrown out into ditches in the depth of winter ! 
 Their own houses (built by themselves) burnt 
 over their heads, with paraffin, by bum-bailiffs, 
 aided by armed police whom Englishmen pay ! ” 
 The following particulars are taken from the 
 Daily News : — 
 
 CORK, Jan. 13, 1887. 
 
 Some terrible eviction . scenes were witnessed yesterday at 
 GLENBEIGH, co. Kerry, on the estate of the Hon. Rowland 
 Winn. The Winn estate, which lies about midway between 
 the towns of Killorglin and Caherciveen, has a rental of about 
 £ 1,600 a year out of land the most barren and desolate. For 
 the past five years a futile war has been carried on against the 
 tenants — poor people whose lot has ever been dire poverty. 
 The County Court Judge of Kerry endeavoured to effect a 
 settlement between the landlord and tenants, but the latter 
 could not pay any of the arrears due. Decrees to the number of 
 seventy were then placed in the hands of the agent, and yester- 
 day the work of execution commenced. The agent adopted a 
 policy of wanton cruelness, and his work will help to bring the 
 land war in Ireland to a crisis. He burned the roofs of the 
 houses almost over the heads of the people, and stood calmly by 
 smoking a cigar until the last smouldering spark of their 
 homesteads expired. 
 
 The eviction cavalcade consisted of the sub-sheriff’s deputy, 
 four bailiffs, Mr. Roe the agent, and six emergency bailiffs 
 brought from Dublin/ the whole protected by a force of about 
 fifty policemen under command of Mr. Morrison, district in- 
 spector. GLENBEIGH was reached at the earliest hour the 
 law allowed evictions to be carried out at. 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 116 
 
 The farm of Patrick Reardon was the starting point. 
 Reardon informed the agent that he was unable to pay, and got 
 back the reply that his house would be burned around him, and 
 so qu : ckly was the threat put into execution that he was scarcely 
 allowed time to get out his furniture, when a match was put to 
 the roof. The people became greatly excited, and it took the 
 efforts of a number of gentlemen in the crowd to keep back a 
 demonstration of their indignation. While the flames roared 
 the agent stood by and looked on as his staff attacked the walls 
 with their crowbars, and only ceased when all was demolished. 
 The tenants, rent is £ 4 10s. ; his valuation £2 17s. He has 
 eight in family, and has no stock. 
 
 The holding of Thomas Burke, of Droum, was then pro- 
 ceeded to. The rent in this case is £4 19s., and the valua- 
 tion £?,. There is a family of six. The tenant was unable 
 to pay a penny. The bailiffs tried to set the roofs on fire, 
 but the thatch, or rather surface soil with which it was covered, 
 would not ignite with all their efforts. The agent then ordered 
 the house to be pulled down, and the bailiffs at once attacked 
 the walls with crowbars, and at length laid every stone of it 
 level. The scene was a sad one. The inmates of the hut were 
 half naked, and emaciated by hunger, and it made one feel sore 
 to witness the grief which they showed. Every moment the 
 crowd became more excited, and now they would have stoned 
 the bailiffs but for the influence brought to bear on them. 
 
 In the next case the holding was a joint one, the tenants being 
 Patrick Diggin and Thomas Diggin. The former had eight in 
 family, and the latter ten. There were four cows on the entire 
 place. Patrick Diggin's wife offered the agent a gale's rent 
 and the law costs, which she assured him was all the money she 
 possessed, and that had been given to her by a daughter who 
 was employed as a farm servant in Limerick. The offer was 
 not accepted, though the sheriff's deputy would evidently have 
 been glad to escape the duty, and urged the agent to take the 
 money. The match was again put to the roof, but no sooner 
 had this been done than the sheriff’s representative drove off 
 and left the agent looking at the conflagration from the body 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 n 7 
 
 of the police. Patrick Diggin, an old man of 80, taking his little 
 grandchild in his arms, wandered up the glen aimlessly. His 
 aged wife, unnoticed in the excitement, lay swooning on the 
 ground. Roar after roar of indignation went up from the 
 crowd, and the position seemed very threatening when Mr. E. 
 Harrington, M.P., appeared on the scene. The police seemed 
 affected, and many of them quickly came forward to subscribe 
 to a sum a sergeant was collecting for the benefit of the poor 
 evicted people. All along the agent stood watching them, and 
 was proceeding to get up on his car when the roof had fallen in, 
 when Mr. Harrington, from the top of the ditch opposite him, 
 addressed the people as follows : — “ People of Glenbeigh, — I 
 have only arrived here just now, and take the opportunity to 
 speak to you before this fellow, this red-handed wretch, who 
 preys on the blood of the people living in this valley. (Cheers.) 
 Here in this glen, on this winter’s evening, before God, I de- 
 nounce him the incendiary who set fire to the roofs over your 
 heads. (Wild cheers.) I tell you even now, people of Glen- 
 beigh, that you need not and must not be intimidated by him. 
 Keep patient. Let no man, woman, or child stir a finger, or do 
 any foolish act, for I tell you you will be here after this scoundrel 
 and his masters have been hunted.” (Loud and enthusiastic 
 cheering.) During the last sentence the eviction cavalcade had 
 got in motion towards Glenbeigh, amid a scene of wild excite- 
 ment. The people had to be restrained from following in a 
 threatening mood. 
 
 CORK, Jax\. 14, 1887. 
 
 The terrible evictions at Glenbeigh, county Kerry, were con- 
 tinued yesterday and to-day. At yesterday’s evictions forty 
 persons — from the sickly child to the helpless old man of four- 
 score — were left homeless. The scenes were the most dis- 
 tressing probably ever witnessed, even in Kerry. 
 
 Yesterday’s evictions were carried out under a heavy down- 
 pour of rain. In the case of one tenant, named Pat Reardon, 
 an exciting and peculiarly painful scene occurred. The miser- 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 n8 
 
 able house was emptied, but the tenant’s infant child was dying, 
 and its mother begged of the agent a shelter for it for the night ; 
 but he refused, and he ordered the bailiff to nail up the door. 
 The poor woman cried piteously, and laid the dying child in the 
 pigstye in the yard, and tried to procure straw for a bed there. 
 The people were very excited, and a spark might have brought 
 on an outbreak. A bailiff was nailing up the door, when a 
 young girl standing by rushed on him with a shovel, and dealt 
 him a blow on the head which made him reel. The agent at 
 once ordered the girl’s arrest, and she submitted. Under an 
 escort of ten policemen with rifles she was being carried down 
 to the main body on the road, when a wild rush was made by 
 the men on the police, and in a few seconds the girl was again 
 in the middle of her friends. Mr. Harrington, M.P., at once 
 counselled the people to resume their quiet attitude, which they 
 did. Meanwhile the agent on the road was giving orders to 
 the police and their officer alike to attack the people and arrest 
 the girl. 
 
 On visiting the house of the next tenant to be evicted, Michael 
 Rahilly, a melancholy sight met the evictors. Lying on a bundle 
 of wet straw in the centre of the smoky cabin was an old 
 woman ; while her children, one of them supporting her head, 
 and the others standing around, waited the approach of death. 
 The agent, sub-sheriffs, and the staff of bailiffs at once formed 
 themselves into a medical council, and went to see the poor 
 woman; but even they could not close their eyes to the terrible 
 facts, and they retired hastily. 
 
 Tne evictions of Michael Griffin and Thomas Griffin were 
 next carried out. Thomas has nine in family, the youngest 
 of his children being an infant of three months. The other 
 children were naked, half-starved little creatures, who cried 
 bitterly at being turned out to the ditch side. The sight of 
 these wretched children appeared to reawaken all the excite- 
 ment of the crowd, and at the next house a scene was enacted 
 which has brought on a climax in these terrible evictions. The 
 tenant, whose name is Michael Griffin, had his door and win- 
 dows barricaded at the approach of the attacking party. About 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 1 19 
 
 a dozen of policemen, with rifles, placed themselves behind the 
 bailiffs, and after the frail door flew in fragments at the blows of 
 the hatchet a struggle took place inside. A couple of girls and 
 children escaped through the windows and a young man was 
 arrested after them. As the handcuffs were being put on, an 
 acting sergeant named Mullis particularized himself by a savage 
 and most unnecessary assault on the prisoner. This act, which 
 was witnessed by the crowd, brought on another rush towards 
 the house, but at this moment the tenant’s wife, who was in 
 delicate health, was brought out in a fainting fit. The poor 
 woman was laid down in the yard, while alongside her the 
 police were forming into a double line and loading their rifles. 
 At every moment the crowd seemed ready to rush on the 
 police to the rescue of those in the house, who were being 
 made prisoners. The scene was one of terrible confusion, and 
 a bloody encounter appeared inevitable. 
 
 Mr. Harrington, M.P., got on the fence of the yard and said : 
 People of Glenbeigh, I ask you in God’s name to be quiet for 
 one moment, and listen to me (creis of yes, yes, mingled with a 
 wild declaration from the women that the tenant’s wife had 
 expired). 
 
 Mr. Harrington : Then kneel down and say a prayer if the 
 poor woman is dying. 
 
 It was awfully touching to witness the manner in which the 
 people acted. Many threw themselves down on their knees in 
 the gutter and sink of the yard, and raised their hands in 
 prayer, while from some shouts and imprecations loud and 
 terrible arose. 
 
 The Marquis of Salisbury’s cure for this 
 misery is “ Twenty years of Coercion !” 
 
 . No language can be bad enough to describe 
 the monsters who practice such inhumanity. 
 
 A gentleman was secretly sent to Rome a 
 short time ago by the British Government to 
 
120 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 endeavour to enlist the assistance of the heads 
 of the Catholic Church in dealing with the Irish 
 leaders ; and the Pope was induced to give the 
 weight of his great authority to the Govern- 
 ment. But it was quickly made known, to the 
 great astonishment of Rome and the Govern- 
 ment, that a change had come over the spirit of 
 the Irish people ; and that in their political 
 struggles they were no longer amenable to the 
 dictates of ecclesiastical authority, however 
 high. Moreover, many of the high church 
 dignitaries and most of the priests of Ireland 
 were heartily with the people, and have done, 
 and are doing, good work as their local leaders. 
 Mr. T. M. Healy dexterously rescued the Pope 
 from an awkward dilemma, by declaring that his 
 Holiness had been imposed upon by a false 
 representation of the condition of Ireland and 
 the Irish question generally, which was probably 
 the case. 
 
 Mr. M. G. Mulhall, in his “ Fifty Years’ 
 National Progress,” referring to Ireland, says: 
 — “ The present reign has been the most disas- 
 trous since that of Elizabeth, as the following 
 statistics show : — 
 
 Died of famine 1,225,000 
 
 Persons evicted 3,668,000 
 
 Number of emigrants - 4,186,000 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 121 
 
 “ Evictions were most numerous immediately 
 after the famine : — 
 
 Years. 
 
 1849-51 
 
 1852-60 
 
 1861-70 
 
 1871-86 
 
 Families. 
 
 263.000 
 
 110.000 
 
 47,000 
 
 104.000 
 
 Persons. 
 
 1,841,000 
 
 770.000 
 
 329.000 
 
 728.000 
 
 “The number of persons evicted is equal to 75 
 per cent, of the actual population. No country, 
 either in Europe or elsewhere, has suffered such 
 wholesale extermination. Emigration since 1837 
 has amounted to a number equal to 84 per cent, 
 of the present population : — 
 
 1837-50 
 
 I85I-60 
 
 l86l-70 
 
 1871-86 
 
 1,085,000 
 
 1,231,000 
 
 867,000 
 
 1,003,000 
 
 Existing Irish settlements abroad, and the 
 estimated wealth in their possession, show that 
 the bulk of the emigrants were good citizens, of 
 thrifty and industrious habits, viz. : — 
 
 
 Number. 
 
 Wealth — Million £. 
 
 United States - 
 
 - 2,040,000 
 
 388 
 
 Canada 
 
 - 1,053,000 
 
 in 
 
 Australia - 
 
 666,000 
 
 132 
 
 Buenos Ayres - 
 
 37,000 
 
 18 
 
 Cape Colony, &c. 
 
 25,000 
 
 6 
 
 
 3,811,000 
 
 6 55 
 
182. ENGLISH, MISRULE 
 
 “In one generation four million emigrants, 
 who left home penniless, have become possessed 
 of real and personal property to the amount of 
 655 millions sterling, besides having sent home 
 to their friends since 1851 a sum of 32 millions.” 
 These figures require no comment ; they speak 
 for themselves. They are a terrible indictment 
 against England. 
 
 I have not dwelt upon the many times the 
 Habeas Corpus Act has been suspended in Ire- 
 land. Since the Union it has been almost con- 
 tinuously suspended, for the operation of the 86 
 Coercion Acts which have been passed during 
 that period. We in England cannot realize the 
 condition of the Irish people under the tyranny 
 of Coercion Acts. The people are slaves pure 
 and simple. They can be imprisoned without 
 trial, or without being told what their offence is, 
 at the will and pleasure of officials. They can 
 be, and have been, confined in dark and noisome 
 dungeons for years, as long as the Act lasts, and 
 fed or starved as their gaolers think fit. They 
 can be, and have been, forbidden to leave their 
 houses from sunset to sunrise, under pain of 
 being seized and thrown into prison. Police- 
 men and others can, and often do, enter bed- 
 
IN IRELAND. 123 
 
 chambers at all hours of the night, strip the 
 clothes off the female members of the family, 
 and otherwise behave in the most brutal and 
 indecent manner. Every newspaper can be 
 suppressed at the will and pleasure of officials ; 
 and no one has the right to hold public meet- 
 ings of any kind unless permitted by “ authority.” 
 In short, under Coercion Act government the 
 most fearful despotism reigns supreme, and no 
 man’s property or life is safe for one moment. 
 
 It will be remembered that a few years ago 
 Mr. Henry George, an eminent American 
 citizen, and Mr. Joynes, one of the masters at 
 Eton College, were travelling in Ireland, when 
 they were rudely seized by the police and 
 thrown into gaol, notwithstanding that they 
 were able to prove who and what they were ; 
 and were only released on receipt of a 
 peremptory order from the British Government. 
 For this gross insult ample apology had to be 
 given to the American Government. If officials 
 in Ireland had the audacity to act in such a way 
 with an American of world-wide celebrity, know- 
 ing, as they must, that England would be called 
 to account for the outrage, what kind of treat- 
 ment may we suppose such officials would accor 
 
124 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 to the Irish people ? The police, in fact, well 
 knew who Mr. George was, and that he was in 
 Ireland for the purpose of studying the condition 
 of the people and the country ; and they 
 insolently followed him about from place to 
 place for days, and at last arrested him and his 
 companion. The police and other officials 
 resented, forsooth, the intrusion of enquirers 
 into Ireland, where they were accustomed to 
 have it all their own way, and to commit every 
 kind of outrage without being called to account. 
 
 Now, for the first time during all this long 
 and sad history, a statesman has proposed to 
 end the bitter strife and wrong doing, by giving 
 to the Irish nation what she has been so long 
 asking for through the majority of her represent- 
 atives in the British Parliament. Mr. Gladstone 
 has recognized the justice, as well as the 
 expediency of no longer withholding the 
 demand for Home Rule, in all those matters 
 which are purely Irish, and not of an Imperial 
 character. Many statesmen have admitted the 
 justice of such a measure, but probably none 
 have ever possessed the power and influence 
 necessary to justify them in introducing a Bill of 
 such a character in the British Parliament. No 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 »*5 
 
 living statesman enjoys anything like Mr. 
 Gladstone’s influence among all classes of the 
 people ; and I believe the verdict of history 
 will be that he is the greatest statesman England 
 has ever produced. Mr. Gladstone is not a 
 democrat, nor an advocate for revolutionary 
 measures ; his sympathies are strongly with the 
 privileged classes, to which he belongs, and with 
 which his interests and those of his family are 
 intimately bound up. He is, I firmly believe, 
 one of the last men to propose a measure which 
 would lead to the disintegration of the Empire, 
 or in any way weaken the influence we possess 
 as a great nation. On the contrary, he would 
 be passionately opposed to anything at all likely 
 to lead to such results. 
 
 He has declared over and over again his 
 firm conviction that Home Rule, so far from 
 separating Ireland from England, will have the 
 effect of binding her to us more firmly than 
 ever ; and, not as hitherto, in the bonds of 
 brotherly love. It will, I think, be granted 
 that few men are better able than Mr. Gladstone 
 to foresee the consequences of political action ; 
 and his deliberate opinion is therefore of the 
 utmost value. He is a strong Imperialist, 
 
126 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 and he believes the granting of Home Rule 
 to Ireland will best serve the interests of 
 imperialism, as well as the interests of justice. 
 He knows full well that the development of the 
 moral forces has reached a point beyond which 
 it is impossible to continue to govern Ireland 
 on the old lines ; and he sees clearly that there 
 is no alternative to Home Rule. When party 
 passion subsides it will be seen that he is the 
 true Unionst. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the Home 
 Rule Bill has not had the powerful advocacy of 
 Mr. John Bright. Had it been introduced a 
 few years ago, before age had impaired his 
 noble generous faculties, there can be no doubt 
 his eloquent voice would have been raised, as 
 of yore, in support of so necessary and just a 
 measure. Indeed, his whole life has been a 
 long protest against the continuance of the 
 terrible injustice that has marked our rule in 
 Ireland ; and no man has spoken more strongly 
 in condemnation of our conduct, or more fer- 
 vently in favour of granting to Ireland her 
 desire for Home Rule. 
 
 The decay of a noble mind is at all times a 
 sorrowful spectacle, but it is doubly so when 
 
/.V IRELAND. 127 
 
 its owner has passed a long life in the service 
 of the people, and has come to be looked upon 
 as their trusted and revered guide. When I 
 read Mr. Bright’s solution of the Irish question 
 my amazement was quickly followed by a keen 
 sense of pain, as I was forced to the conclusion 
 that the great Tribune had really passed away ; 
 and that his invaluable services were lost to 
 that great cause which for so many years he 
 has had at heart, and on which he has spoken 
 so often and so eloquently. I was reminded of 
 another melancholy occasion, when the people 
 had to deplore the decay of great and splendid 
 abilities, at a time when they would have been 
 of the utmost value to the cause of progress 
 and humanity. I refer to Mr. Edmund Burke. 
 Mr. Henry Buckle, in his “ History of Civiliza- 
 tion,” has shown conclusively that Burke was 
 no longer himself when he wrote his Thoughts 
 on a Regicide Peace. The utterances of great 
 men at such times are sadly to be deplored, as 
 they are sure to be made use of by the enemies 
 of the people — by that very class who are bit- 
 terly antagonistic to those great men in their 
 life-labours, but who gleefully and triumphantly 
 quote them when Nature’s decay has reduced 
 
128 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 the noble intellects almost to the level of those 
 of their opponents. 
 
 The following are a few of the utterances 
 of Mr. Bright on Ireland : — • 
 
 Ireland is a land of many sorrows. Men fight for supremacy 
 and call it Protestantism ; they fight for evil and bad laws, and 
 call it acting for the defence of property. 
 
 Speech in Dublin, 2nd November, 1866. 
 
 I have thought, if I could be in all other things the same but 
 by birth an Irishman, there is not a town in this island I would 
 not visit for the purpose of discussing the great Irish question, 
 and of rousing my countrymen to some great and united action. 
 I do not believe in the necessity of widespread and perpetual 
 misery. I do not believe that we are placed on this island and on 
 this earth, that one man may be great and wealthy, and revel in 
 every profuse indulgence, and five, six, nine, or ten men shall 
 suffer the abject misery which we see so commonly in the world. 
 With your soil, your climate, and your active and spirited race, 
 I know not what you might not do. 
 
 Mr. Bright, speaking in the House of Com- 
 mons, on the 25th August, 1848, observed : — 
 
 Let us think of the half-million who within two years past 
 have perished miserably in the workhouses, on the highways, 
 and in their hovels — more — far more — than ever fell by the 
 sword in any war this country ever waged ; let us think of the 
 crop of nameless horrors which is even now growing up in 
 Ireland, and whose disastrous fruit may be gathered in years 
 and generations to come. 
 
f 
 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 129 
 
 Speaking at Rochdale, on the 23rd December, 
 1867, Mr. Bright said : — 
 
 I entirely disagree with those who, when any crisis or trouble 
 arises in Ireland, say that you must first of all preserve order, 
 you must put down all disloyalty and disobedience to the law, 
 you must assert the supremacy of the Government, and then 
 consider the grievances that are complained of. This has been 
 the case in Ireland for 200 years. The great preserver there 
 has been the gallows. Now twenty years ago many of you will 
 recollect that in Ireland, under the guidance of one of Ireland’s 
 greatest sons, the late Mr. O’Connell, there were held in Ireland 
 meetings of vast numbers of people, equal probably in number 
 to the meetings that were held a year ago in Birmingham 
 Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and in London. Those meetings 
 were held to condemn certain things that were evil in Ireland, 
 to demand remedies, to even insist that there should be a repeal 
 of the legislative union between the two countries, for many 
 thought that only an Irish Parliament could abolish the miseries 
 of Ireland, but there is not one of you that can point to any 
 single great measure of justice which has been given to Ireland 
 in consequence of these great meetings. The grievances were 
 not remedied. The demands of the people were not conceded. 
 Nothing has been done in Ireland except under the influence of 
 terror. In 1829 the Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed, but 
 the Duke of Wellington admitted it was passed because he 
 would not take the responsibility of civil war. Afterwards, 
 when a great famine took place, a Poor Law was passed for 
 Ireland, and the Encumbered Estates Court was established, in 
 order that the sale of land might be made more free ; but except 
 under the pressure of some great emergency no man can point 
 to anything great or good having been done by the Imperial 
 Parliament for the Irish nation. But if these huge meetings 
 were disregarded, what was more natural or inevitable than that 
 a certain portion of the people, not reasoning well, stimulated 
 by an impassionate feeling of the wrongs done to their country, 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 should descend into the ranks, the odious and criminal ranks, of 
 a dark conspiracy ? If last year Parliament had refused to extend 
 the franchise, if all our great meetings had been held in vain, if 
 the popular voice had risen so that all the world should have 
 heard but the deaf members of the Imperial Legislature, you 
 would have had in England, I will not say a dark and a criminal 
 conspiracy, but you would have had men who would gradually 
 have worked their way among the people, and would have 
 instructed them in principles and in practices which are near 
 akin to the worst form of criminal conspiracy. There is nothing 
 so safe as great meetings. Come together, look each other in 
 the face, let the men who comprehend the things discuss them 
 fairly, before you consider them well for yourselves, vote by an 
 open free vote in favour of the policy that you require, and 
 let your rulers take that voice as significant of the will of the 
 country, and let them bend to it and give the country that 
 which it demands. That has never been done for Ireland, and 
 it is on this ground, and for this reason, that you have at this 
 moment the terrible and calamitous state of things that exists. 
 
 There is no statesmanship merely in acts of force and acts of 
 repression. And worse than that, I have not observed since I 
 have been in Parliament anything on this Irish question that 
 approaches to the dignity of statesmanship. There have been 
 Acts for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, like that 
 which we are now discussing ; but there has been no statesman- 
 ship. Men, the most clumsy and brutal, can do these things ; 
 but we want men of higher temper — men of higher genius — 
 men of higher patriotism, to deal with the affairs of Ireland. 
 
 . . . . All history teaches us that it is not in human nature 
 
 that men should be content under any system of legislation and 
 of institutions such as exist in Ireland. You may pass this Bill, 
 you may put the Home Secretary’s 500 men into gaol — you 
 may do more than this, you may suppress the conspiracy, and 
 put down the insurrection — but the moment it is suppressed 
 there will still remain the germs of this malady, and from those 
 germs will grow up, as heretofore, another crop of insurrection, 
 and another harvest of misfortune. And it may be that those 
 
IN IRELAND . 
 
 131 
 
 who sit here eighteen years after this moment [in January, 1886] 
 will find another Ministry and another Secretary of State ready 
 to propose to you another administration of the same ever- 
 failing and ever-poisonous remedies. I say there is a mode of 
 making Ireland loyal. 
 
 Take the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is there in any 
 legislative assembly in the world a man, as the world judges, 
 of more transcendent capacity ? I will say even, is there a man 
 with a more honest wish to do good to the country in which he 
 occupies so conspicuous a place ? Suppose it w r ere possible for 
 this man, with his intellect, with his far-reaching vision, to 
 examine this question thoroughly and to say for once — whether 
 this leads to office and to the miserable notoriety that men call 
 fame which springs from office, or not — If it be possible, we 
 will act with loyalty to the Sovereign and justice to the people; 
 and if it be possible, w T e will make Ireland a strength and not a 
 weakness to the British Empire. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer to whom that appeal was 
 addressed was until lately the Prime Minister of England. 
 Surely, he, Mr. Gladstone, has, at length, responded to Mr. 
 Bright’s appeal. 
 
 Mr. Bright spoke as follows at Liverpool on 
 June 3rd, 1868 : — 
 
 I have never said that Irishmen are not at liberty to ask for, 
 and if they could accomplish it, to obtain the repeal of the Union. 
 I say that we have no right whatever to insist upon a union 
 between Ireland and Great Britain upon our terms only. There 
 are those among us who disbelieve in any permanent reconcilia- 
 tion with Great Britain, who think that the only true and 
 lasting remedy for Irish discontent is to be found either in the 
 repeal of the Act of Union or in absolute independence. . . . 
 
 I am one of those who admit — as every sensible man must admit 
 — that an Act which the Parliament of the United Kingdom has 
 passed the Parliament of the United Kingdom can repeal. And 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 further, I am willing to admit that everybody in England allows, 
 with regard to every foreign country, that any nation, believing 
 it to be its interest, has a right both to ask for and to strive for 
 national independence. 
 
 It is painful to contrast Mr. Bright in these 
 extracts with Mr. Bright in his recent utter- 
 ances. Nothing could more plainly indicate the 
 sad condition referred to above, which for some 
 time past has been a matter for grave anxiety to 
 his friends. Let us remember him in his days 
 of vigour, and draw the veil over the occasional 
 utterances of his declining years. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, to whom the tem- 
 porary defeat of the Home Rule Bill is in some 
 measure due, is a man of a very different stamp. 
 He was a rising man, to whom advanced Radicals 
 looked for good political work in the future ; and 
 many of those who believed him to be 
 thoroughly sound have gone with him in his 
 defection from Mr. Gladstone. Many, on reflec- 
 tion, have returned to the old chief, and many 
 more are in a state of uneasiness at the course 
 they adopted in following Mr. Chamberlain. 
 He, unlike Mr. Bright, has no claim upon our 
 sympathies or respect, and is entitled to no 
 consideration for past services rendered to the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 *33 
 
 people, since, on the first great occasion, he 
 became a traitor to the people’s cause, and, I 
 will venture to say, to his own conscience. 
 
 He is a man of acute ability, energetic, and 
 industrious, but altogether wanting in that broad 
 and comprehensive intellect which enables a 
 man to grasp great ideas, and utilize them in the 
 progressive transformations which societies 
 constantly undergo. His knowledge of the 
 details of a vestry would be exhaustive, and his 
 restless energy would, in such a body, soon 
 bring him to the front. Similar abilities soon 
 made him a marked man in the House of Com- 
 mons, which, in its ordinary work, is but an 
 enlarged vestry ; but the introduction of an 
 epoch-making measure was too much for his 
 comparatively narrow mind, and he was unable 
 to realize the successful completion of so great 
 a change. In proof of this I would point to his 
 hesitating conduct, and his sorrowful conviction 
 that he is losing political caste. 
 
 The greatness of his mind is not in propor- 
 tion to the greatness of the position he has 
 attained to. A combination of circumstances 
 has worked in his favour, as we have seen in 
 some other political instances. His knowledge 
 
134 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 of details is great, but his knowledge of prin- 
 ciples is small ; and where, in ambitious 
 men, this is the case, there is invariably an 
 inordinate amount of vanity. That he is ex- 
 tremely vain is well known, and, like most vain 
 men, he is very jealous. It was owing to these 
 two objectionable qualities, together with his 
 belief that his own foolish scheme for Ireland 
 was better than Mr. Gladstone’s, that he severed 
 himself from that great statesman. Under Mr. 
 Gladstone’s wing Mr. Chamberlain was a 
 power; opposed to Mr. Gladstone he is fast 
 becoming a nonentity. He is not of that stuff 
 of which great leaders are made ; and day by 
 day this is becoming more apparent, even to 
 his own followers. 
 
 He is, moreover, deficient in moral and phy- 
 sical courage ; and almost, if not quite, merits 
 the appellation of coward. He knows full well 
 that in England he may, without fear of phy- 
 sical danger, advocate any politital views he 
 pleases, and yet a short time since he told an 
 audience in Scotland, in an unsteady voice, and 
 almost with tears in his eyes, that he was sub- 
 ject to the danger of assassination. When a 
 deputation of respectable, poor working fellow- 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 *35 
 
 townsmen out of employment waited upon him 
 at his own house in Birmingham, to ask his 
 advice and assistance in suggesting or creating 
 temporary employment, he filled his house with 
 policemen, and scarcely ventured out of arm’s 
 length of his protectors. The sooner such a 
 man stands before the public in his true cha- 
 racter the better. The last few months have 
 nearly divested him of the lion’s skin. The 
 Salisburies and the Hartingtons have patted 
 him on the back ; the ladies of these families 
 have, under instructions, smiled upon him, and 
 this has been too much for the successful screw 
 jobber. 
 
 The Marquis of Hartington is the third pro- 
 minent member of the Liberal party to whom 
 the Irish nation is specially indebted for the 
 miscarriage of Mr. Gladstone’s measure of 
 justice. I apprehend there are few Radicals, 
 or even moderately-advanced Liberals, who are 
 greatly surprised at Lord Hartington’s action. 
 He is a Whig of the Old School, and as 
 aristocratic in his instincts and sentiments as 
 Lord Salisbury himself. The exigencies of party 
 government require a sprinkling of aristocratic 
 families in the “ Liberal ” party, and Lord 
 
136 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 Hartington’s family are by tradition and acci- 
 dent members of that party. While a little 
 mild, harmless legislation goes on under the 
 Liberal banner, Lord Hartington is content 
 to “ work ” with his party ; but as soon as any 
 really useful measure is introduced which is 
 to benefit the people, or interferes with the 
 dominance of the privileged classes, he shows 
 at once his true political colour, and sides with 
 the opponents of the people. 
 
 Lord Hartington, and all such as he, are real 
 enemies in the guise of friends, and it will be a 
 blessing to the working people when such 
 wolves in sheep’s clothing are turned out of the 
 party of progress. This implies, however, a 
 complete re-organization of the people’s party. 
 There has been, and is, too great a hankering 
 after titled persons and great plutocrats, who in 
 the very nature of things are opposed to all 
 true progress. They are well content with that 
 state of things which gives them the fat of the 
 land without labour or trouble, and keeps the 
 great body of the people in a condition of sub- 
 serviency and poverty. The so-called “rights" 
 of the upper classes are the real and bitter 
 wrongs of the people ; and it is only the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 137 
 
 grossest ignorance on the part of the latter that 
 prevents them from clearly seeing this. 
 
 It is pitiful enough to hear a working-man 
 call himself a “ moderate Liberal,” but, good 
 heavens ! that any man who labours hard during 
 the greater part of his waking hours for a bare 
 subsistence, while he sees five-sixths of his 
 earnings go to support in unbounded luxury a 
 numerous, pompous, insolent, idle class, should 
 call himself a Conservative , and wish to per- 
 petuate such an outrageous state of inequality, 
 is more than one can understand, if indeed it 
 does not pass all human understanding. It is 
 due, however, to a lamentable state of ignor- 
 ance, which the Education Act may do some- 
 thing in the near future to counteract. It is as 
 though a poor over-worked ass were to remon- 
 strate with those who wished to lighten his 
 burdens, thus : “ My ancestors, from time 
 
 immemorial, have been the asses to carry the 
 panniers and burdens of other, and I will con- 
 tinue to be the same uncomplaining poor beast 
 of burden as my ancestors were, and carry the 
 panniers and burdens of others, while they take 
 their ease, and reward me with kicks and 
 blows.” From the proverbial stupidity of the 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 138 
 
 poor ass, if he could speak, we might expect 
 some such answer in reply to his friendly 
 mediator and enlightener ; but that any British 
 workman should be such a poor spiritless, 
 foolish ass is really marvellous. 
 
 The Home Rule Bill has been wrecked for 
 the time by these three men, Bright, Chamber- 
 lain, and Hartington, who are now in close 
 alliance with the Tory party, and voting in 
 favour of the most villainous and atrocious 
 Coercion Bill that was ever presented to 
 Parliament. Let the people clearly understand 
 the objects and aims of Salisbury and his party. 
 The Coercion Bill takes away the entire 
 liberties of the Irish people. The military and 
 police forces are sufficient to enable the Govern- 
 ment to fill the gaols, and strike terror 
 into the hearts of the people, and thus destroy 
 all opposition for a time. Having thus prepared 
 the way, the last penny will be wrung out of 
 the Irish for the purchase of the landlord’s 
 estates, at prices far beyond their actual value. 
 This will impoverish, almost beyond the power 
 of redemption, the Irish nation ; but this will not 
 satisfy the Government and their landlord 
 friends. And now comes the rub for the 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 139 
 
 English, Scotch, and Welsh taxpayer. The 
 amounts the landlords will demand for the 
 land they stole from the Irish will be made up 
 by the tax collectors of this country. So that 
 this rascally Tory Land Bill will not only rob 
 the Irish people of every available farthing, but 
 it will actually, by its ingenious device, rob the 
 English taxpayer as well : all of which plunder 
 will go into the pockets of the grinning and 
 delighted landlords. In plain terms, it is nothing- 
 less than an organized system of robbery by a 
 gang of conspirators and swindlers of the most 
 dastardly kind. Is this language too strong, 
 reader ? Think of the villainy of such a scheme, 
 and then ask yourself if any language can be 
 too strong to apply to such a precious gang of 
 scoundrels. 
 
 It remains to be seen whether the people of 
 this country will permit them to carry out such 
 a barefaced scheme for plundering the poor. 
 The people have borne much, and it is 
 impossible to assign a limit to their forbearance, 
 or, to call it by its right name, their stupidity. 
 That England must grant Home Rule to 
 Ireland at no distant date is an absolute certainty. 
 It is only a bare act of justice ; and once the 
 
ENGLISH MISRULE 
 
 light of thoroughly roused public opinion beats 
 upon any great question justice cannot be long 
 delayed. Events march on regardless of man’s 
 opposing will ; and they make in the main for 
 justice. The hand of time can neither stand 
 still nor go back ; and it carries with it the 
 continuous destruction of bigotry, prejudice, 
 and injustice. 
 
 The majority of the “ classes ” in England 
 have studiously and persistently, over the Irish 
 question, appealed to the worst passions of 
 Englishmen. The Tory Government and their 
 followers in Parliament and out of Parliament, 
 the swashbucklers of the clubs, the parasites of 
 the court, the most widely circulated organs of 
 the press, the self-sufficient judge upon the 
 bench, and all the fawning sycophants of the 
 nation, have kept up a continuous howl to the 
 English people that Home Rule for Ireland 
 means the disintegration of the British empire, 
 and a weak and cowardly concession to fear on 
 the part of England. It remains to be seen 
 whether or not the English people will be 
 guided by this blatant and vile crew. I believe 
 the juster and nobler instincts of the manhood 
 of England will prevail over the base influences 
 
IN IRELAND. 
 
 141 
 
 bv which we are surrounded, and that the 
 people will be intelligent enough to see through 
 the cuckoo cry of “ danger to the empire,” and 
 brave enough to treat with contempt the cun- 
 ning dodge of the Tories and their friends in 
 trying to rouse the jingo passions of the 
 people. 
 
 If there would be danger to the happiness 
 and prosperity of the English people in Ireland 
 being detached from the crown of Great Britain, 
 that danger is most certainly incurred by a con- 
 tinuance on the old lines of policy. For I 
 firmly believe that the progress of events has 
 now rendered the prolongation of such policy 
 utterly impossible, and that the attempt must 
 result very shortly in the complete separation ot 
 the two countries. The power of Ireland is 
 growing immensely, and if her just demands 
 are again ignored, for the thousandth time, the 
 breach that separates the two countries will 
 become wider and wider, until the accumulation 
 of the bitter hatreds of centuries will be such 
 that, to quote the words of Milton, “ Never can 
 true reconcilement grow, where wounds of 
 deadly hate have pierced so deep.” 
 

 

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 of a wide welcome. . . . He carries us successively through the Indian, 
 
 Egyptian, Persian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Italian, Spanish, Flemish, 
 Dutch, French, and English schools. He is especially full upon the art of 
 the middle ages and the Renaissance, and the illustrations which accompany 
 the text will be helpful to students.” — Times. 
 
 u His sketches of the English school are very masterly and discriminating.’ ’ 
 —British Quarterly. 
 
 “It is a most conscientious book.” — Daily News* 
 
 3 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, 
 
 1649—1734 : 
 
 or, How the Duke of Richmond Gained his Pension. 
 
 Compiled from State Papers preserved in the Archives of the 
 French Foreign Office by H. Forneron. 
 
 With Portraits, facsimile letter, etc. 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top. 
 
 [In the press . 
 
 A History of English Caricaturists and Graphic 
 Humourists of the Nineteenth Century : 
 
 By Graham Everitt. 
 
 Illustrated by a large number of Reproductions on Wood of scarce 
 Caricatures, Broadsides, Book Illustrations, etc., by the Cruikshanks, 
 Rowlandson, Gillray, Bunbury, Theodore Lane, Crowquill, Bennett, 
 Sandby, Thackeray, Dore, Seymour, “Phiz,” Leech, etc. 
 
 In large 4to, on antique-laid paper (specially designed and made for 
 this work), the plates on finest hand-made paper, and the whole bound 
 in most superb style, 42 s. 
 
 ' ' At last we have a treatise upon our caricaturists and comic draughtsmen 
 worthy of the great subject. . . The war with France, the introduction of 
 
 gas, the scandals of Mrs. Clarke and Queen Caroline, Joanna Southcott, the 
 O. P. riots, and other matters, make up a fascinating recital for the student^ 
 moeurs. . . . Throughout the book we notice an earnest desire to do 
 
 justice to the rival claims of the artists. He has been at great pains to give 
 satisfactory memoirs of their lives and honest criticisms of their works. . . . 
 In brief, then, Mr. Everitt’s book is a valuable addition to our scanty litera- 
 ture on a most delightful and instructive subject, admirable in its plan and 
 sound in its judgments.” — Pall Mall Gazette . 
 
 "The book is very fully and well illustrated, forming quite a gallery of 
 nineteenth century caricature. The author starts with Gillray and Rowland- 
 son, works through the lives of the Cruikshanks, ' H. B.’ and his son Dick 
 Doyle, Seymour, Leech, and Hablot Browne (' Phiz.'), and carries his history 
 down to Tenniel. The minor figures are not forgotten — Kenny Meadows, 
 R. W. Buss, Lane, Crowquill, Bennett, and Thackeray. . . . His 
 
 judgment is sound and his criticism discriminating, and his text is areal con- 
 tribution to the history of the social life of the century.” — Truth. 
 
 “ It contains a large amount of information and some very valuable bib- 
 liographical lists. It is luxuriously illustrated with about seventy wood 
 engravings (full-page plates).” — Literary World. 
 
 “ As regards the illustrations, it is only necessary to say that they com- 
 prise some of the best and most characteristic specimens of our comic artists.” 
 — The Bookseller . 
 
 Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton : 
 
 With numerous Extracts from her MS. Autobiography and other 
 Original Documents. Published in Vindication of her Memory 
 By Louisa Devey, Literary Executrix to the Dowager Lady Lytton. 
 
 Large 8vo, with Steel Portrait and Facsimile Letter, 21 s. 
 
 "The circumstances under which this memoir is written in some degree 
 justify the withdrawal of the veil which is generally thrown over domestic 
 dissensions. ... If one party is to lay his case before the public, it seems 
 but fair that both should do so. Restrained by an injunction from publish- 
 ing the late Lord Lytton’s letters, Miss Devey has, as Lady Lytton’s literary 
 executrix, adopted the only course that remained to her to show that there 
 are two sides to every question. . . . Many of the details must be re- 
 
 garded as proved beyond dispute.” — Athenaeum . 
 
 4 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Anecdotes of Painting in England : 
 
 With some Account of the Principal Artists. 
 
 By Horace Walpole. 
 
 Enlarged by Rev. James D allaway. 
 
 To which is added Vertue’s Catalogue of Engravers who have been 
 born or have resided in England. 
 
 A new edition, revised, with additional Notes, by Ralph N. Wornum. 
 Illustrated with eighty Portraits of the^Principal Artists. 
 
 3 vols., large 8vo, cloth gilt, 27 s. 
 
 The following are the 80 engraved 
 in this work : 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 Horace Walpole. 
 
 Lady Damer. 
 
 John Mabuse. 
 
 Hans Holbein. 
 
 Sir Antonio More. 
 
 Earl of Devon. 
 
 Nicholas Hilliard. 
 
 Isaac Oliver. 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Bacon. 
 
 Countess of Arundel. 
 
 Daniel Mytens. 
 
 Peter Oliver. 
 
 Earl of Arundel. 
 
 Sir Peter Paul Rubens. 
 
 Sir Anthony Vandyck. 
 
 Cornelius Polenburg. 
 
 John Lorrentius. 
 
 Joas Van Cleeve. 
 
 Cornelius Ketel. 
 
 F. Zuccaro and M. Garrard. 
 
 Paul Vansomer. 
 
 Abraham Diepenbeck. 
 
 Vol. 2. 
 
 William Dobson. 
 
 Gerard Honthorst. 
 
 Nicholas Laniere. 
 
 John Petitot. 
 
 Inigo Jones. 
 
 Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 John Greenhill. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Killiegrew. 
 
 Thomas Flatman. 
 
 Antonio Verrio. 
 
 Peter Roestraten. 
 
 W. Vandevelde, sen. and jun. 
 William Wissing. 
 
 Samuel Cooper. 
 
 portraits of great artists contained 
 
 Grinling Gibbons. 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren. 
 
 Henry Tilson. 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 John Riley. 
 
 Godfrey Schalken. 
 
 Thomas Murray. 
 
 Sir John Vanbrugh. 
 
 Michael Dahl. 
 
 Sir James Thornhill. 
 
 P. Monamy. 
 
 Enoch Zeeman. 
 
 James Gibbs. 
 
 C. C. Reisen. 
 
 Philip Mercier. 
 
 George Lambert. 
 
 Thomas Worlidge. 
 
 Vol. 3. 
 
 William Hogarth. 
 
 Lewis Goupy. 
 
 John Michael Rysbraek. 
 
 L. F. Roubiliac. 
 
 Earl of Burlington. 
 
 William Kent. 
 
 Robert Van Voorst. 
 
 Luke Vorsterman. 
 
 Winceslaus Hollar. 
 
 William Faithorne. 
 
 Prince Rupert. 
 
 John Evelyn. 
 
 Peter Vanderbank. 
 
 R. Tompson. 
 
 Robert White. 
 
 Hamlet Winstanley. 
 
 Isaac Becket. 
 
 John Smith. 
 
 John Pine. 
 
 Sir Robert Strange. 
 
 George Vertue. 
 
 5 
 
Books of travel anfc Hbventure 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN 6 - CO. 
 
 From the Pyrenees to the Channel in a Dog Cart : 
 
 By C. E. Acland-Troyte. 
 
 With full page Plates. 
 
 Large 8vo, cloth extra, 1 6s. 
 
 Cruise of H. M. S. “ Alert ” : 
 
 Four Years in Patagonian, Polynesian, and Mascarene Waters. 
 
 By R. W. Coppinger, M.D. (Staff-surgeon onboard). 
 
 With 1 6 Plates, and several Cuts in the text, from drawings and photos, 
 by the Author and F. North, R.N. 
 
 Fourth edition. 8vo, cloth, gilt edges, 6 j. 
 
 “ No one could be better fitted than Dr. Coppinger to put into a readable 
 shape the result of his investigations as a naturalist, and his impressions of 
 strange scenery and savage men. . . . Every page attests his method 
 
 and his practical familiarity,” etc. — Saturday Rrview. 
 
 “The importance of the ‘Alert’s’ surveying operations can hardly be 
 overrated. . . • He is a close and accurate observer. . . . Promi- 
 
 nently interesting among modern books of travel.” — Academy . 
 
 “ The book is a model of its class.” — Graphic m 
 
 Reconnoitring Central Asia: 
 
 Adventures of English and Russian Explorers, Secret Agents, and 
 
 Special Correspondents in the Region between the Caspian and India, 
 
 from 1863 to 1884. 
 
 By Charles Marvin. 
 
 With Illustrations and Map. 
 
 Third edition. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 “A timely and interesting volume. ... A good map and some 
 illustrations add to the value of Mr. Marvin’s book ."—Graphic. 
 
 “Mr. Marvin is, perhaps, our greatest authority on Central Asia.” — 
 Guardian. 
 
 * ' Charles Marvin writes with the charm of a novelist, and the accuracy of 
 a mathematician.” — New York Herald. 
 
 “A work of extreme interest.” — Standard. 
 
 Emigrant Life in Kansas: 
 
 By Percy G. Ebbutt. 
 
 With numerous Plates by the Author. 
 
 Demy 8vo, extra cloth gilt, gilt top, ioj*. 6 d. 
 
 “ He gives a very good — and what to intending emigrants will prove a very 
 useful— description of his every-day existence in the West.” — Contemporary 
 Review. 
 
 “We refer those who wish to know more of the experiences of these 
 settlers to the book itself, which concludes with many practical remarks. 
 
 . . . A clear, homely, every-day view of emigrant life.” — Anglo - 
 
 A mcrican T i mes. 
 
 G 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Over Siberian Snows : 
 
 A Narrative of a Journey by Sledge over the Snows of Russia and 
 Siberia, by Caravan through Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert and 
 the Great Wall, and by Mule Palanquin through China to Pekin. 
 
 By Victor Meignan. 
 
 Demy 8vo, with Map and 15 Plates, 8vo, cloth gilt, 1 6s. 
 
 “The popular taste is fairly met. . , . His sketches of society are 
 
 drawn with a light and skilful pen, and of perils and adventures he has 
 exciting incidents to relate.”- — Saturday Review. 
 
 “ A delightful work of travel. ... It cannot fail to be popular.” — 
 Science Gossip. 
 
 “Mr. Meignan’s narrative can be read right through with unflagging 
 interest, rising sometimes to excitement. Useful information respecting the 
 manners, customs, and condition of the countries traversed is picked up 
 naturally as we accompany the author on his long winter journey eastward.” 
 — Scotsman . 
 
 The Solomon Islands and their Natives : 
 
 By H. B. Guppy, M.B. 
 
 With several Plates, Coloured Maps, and Woodcuts from Photos 
 by the Author. 
 
 Royal 8 vo, cloth extra, gilt top. [Just published. 
 
 The Geology and Physical Characteristics of the 
 Solomon Islands: 
 
 By H. B. Guppy, M.B. 
 
 With four Maps. Royal 8vo, uniform with the above. 
 
 [Just published. 
 
 Tom Tiddler’s Ground : 
 
 Sketches of Men and Manners in the United States. 
 
 By Florence Marryat. 
 
 8vo, cloth extra, Js. 6d. 
 
 1 4 Seldom does one come across a book of travels so thoroughly amusing, 
 from first to last, as 4 Tom Tiddler's Ground.’ ” — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 “There can be little doubt that ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’ will meet with 
 an equally popular reception on either side of the ‘herring pond.’” — 
 Morning Post. 
 
 “Always lively and always readable.” — Globe. 
 
 “A very amusing book.” — Echo . 
 
 Adventures in Servia: 
 
 Experiences of a medical free-lance among the Bashi-Bazouks, etc. 
 
 By Dr. Alfred Wright. 
 
 Edited and Illustrated by E. Farquhar-Bernard, M.R. C.S. (late 
 Surgeon of the Servian Army). Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, ioj*. 6d. 
 
 4 4 Whoever takes up Mr. Bernard’s book must be very dull or in a very 
 ill-humour if he does not get a great many hearty laughs out of it.” — Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 7 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 
 
 India and Tiger Hunting: 
 
 By Colonel Julius Barras. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth neat, 2 vols., each 3^. 6d. 
 
 “Colonel Barras has passed more than a quarter of a century in the Indian 
 army, lived in all sorts of quarters, made acquaintance with almost every 
 species of aboriginal creatures — men and animals, and met with countless 
 adventures, large and small, agreeable and disagreeable." — Whitehall 
 Review. 
 
 “ Will well repay perusal by any one interested in the pursuit of big game." 
 — Allen's Indian Mail . 
 
 The New Shikari at our Indian Stations : 
 
 By Colonel Julius Barras. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth neat, 2 vols., each 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' ‘ The Colonel had a happy idea when he thought of supplementing his 
 amusing book on tiger hunting by a description of the various Indian 
 stations — some of them very remote— to which a young officer is likely to be 
 sent, and of the different kinds of sport in which he may indulge without 
 going in for the ruinous expenses of shikar on a grand scale." — Spectator. 
 
 “ Will commend itself to old Indians as well as to new." — Sind Gazette . 
 
 Wild Life in Canara and Ganjam : 
 
 By Gordon S. Forbes, C.S. (retired). 
 
 With Coloured Plates, crown 8vo, 6.r. 
 
 “Mr. Forbes has exciting reminiscences to give respecting his hunting 
 excursions in the Ghauts after tiger and wild bison, elk and ibex." — Scotsman. 
 
 South Africa. 
 
 A Sketch Book of Men and Manners. 
 
 By J. Stanley Little. 
 
 2 vols. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 2 is. 
 
 “An exhaustive account of South Africa.” — Spectator. 
 
 “ An entertaining and popular book ." — Contemporary Review . 
 
 “It is not often that we get a brighter, lighter, or more amusing book 
 than this description of our South African Colonies ." — Pall Mall Gazette . 
 
 The Farm in the Karoo : 
 
 By Mrs. Carey Hobson. 
 
 Illustrated. Second edition. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. 
 
 “Mrs. Carey-Hobson has the prime qualification of genuine descriptive 
 power, and her narrative of adventures and experiences is likely to find 
 acceptance among a wide circle of readers .” — Daily JVews . 
 
 A Winter’s Cruise in the Mediterranean : 
 
 By W. D. Gainsford. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. [Just published. 
 
 “ The writer is an amusing and original person, who writes in an amusing 
 and original style, . . . full of graphic touches of narrative description, 
 
 and observation upon Mediterranean cruising experiences in winter." — 
 Scotsman. 
 
 “It is very interesting, and readers of more pretentious books will find in 
 it much to instruct and amuse them. . . . The descriptions of the 
 
 Italian coast are excellent.” — Times. 
 
 “ A very pleasant little book, readable and light.”— La?id 6 s Water. 
 
PART IV.] 
 
 Social ant> political Books 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SWA N SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 Six Centuries of Work and Wages: 
 
 A History of English Labour. 
 
 By Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. 
 
 Second and cheaper edition (revised) in I vol. Thick demy 8vo, cloth 
 extra, 15^. 
 
 "One of the most important of economic book's .” 1 — Contemporary Review. 
 "A vast amount of minute information, bearing upon the agricultural and 
 social condition of England .” — Pall Mall Gazette . 
 
 "A novel and interesting view of the rises and falls of wages and prices 
 from the 13th to 19th century.” — Times. 
 
 ‘ ' We welcome this new edition of a book which we have already reviewed 
 with hearty recognition.” — Spectator. 
 
 "Nothing that Mr. Rogers writes on a subject that he has made so 
 peculiarly his own can fail to be of interest to thoughtful people, but his 
 present book is far more entertaining than we had expected.” — Athenceum. 
 
 "A vivid picture of the agricultural and social life of early English times, 
 the condition of the towns, and the distribution of wealth throughout the 
 country .” — The Bookseller. 
 
 ( People's Edition of the same.) 
 
 Eight Chapters from the History of English 
 Work and Wages: 
 
 Being a Reprint of certain chapters of “ Six Centuries of Work and 
 Wages.” 
 
 By Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3^. 6d. 
 
 This volume contains only those chapters of the larger work which deal 
 with modern facts. 
 
 Problems in Political Economy: 
 
 By Alfred Milnes, M.A. 
 
 Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 "Not only are the difficulties and problems of economical science ad- 
 mirably stated in this little volume, but the views of the more prominent 
 schools of thought are also indicated. A good deal of labour has been 
 expended upon the work, which is as valuable as it is unpretentious.” — 
 Spectator. 
 
 1 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Capital : 
 
 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CAPITALIST PRODUCTION. 
 
 By Karl Marx. 
 
 Second English edition, translated from the Third German edition. 
 
 By Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, D.Sc., etc., 
 
 And Edited by F. Engels. 
 
 2 vols, 8vo, cloth, 30 s. 
 
 "A good English translation has long been wanted, and this one is very 
 good. ... So great a position has not been won by any work on 
 Economic Science since the appearance of the ' Wealth of Nations.’ . . . 
 All these circumstances invest, therefore, the teachings of this particularly 
 acute thinker with an interest such as cannot be claimed by any other thinker 
 of the present day.” — Athenceum . 
 
 “ Interesting and marked by profound thought. ” — Morning Post. 
 
 “A contribution to literature of immense service.” — Bullionist . 
 
 The Principles of Social Economy : 
 
 By Yves Guyot, Hon. Member Cobden Club. 
 
 With numerous Diagrams, 8vo, cloth, 9 s. 
 
 " An interesting and suggestive work. It is a profound treatise on social 
 economy, and an invaluable collection of facts.” — Spectator. 
 
 “ He gives a brilliant expost of the weaknesses and dangers of state inter- 
 vention and protection, and of the triumphant position of free-traders, backed 
 by statistics. . . . From its valuable official returns, and the masterly 
 
 manner in which they are collated, it cannot but be regarded as an indis- 
 pensable compendium. ” — Galignani. 
 
 Society in the Elizabethan Age : 
 
 By Hubert Hall, of H.M. Public Record Office. 
 
 With numerous Coloured and other Plates derived from contemporary 
 
 Drawings, and a large folding Coloured Map of London in the Six- 
 teenth Century. 
 
 Third edition. 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, icxr. 6d» 
 
 Contents. — Chap. I., The Landlord. II., The Steward. III., 
 The Tenant. IV., The Burgess. V., The Merchant. VI., The 
 Host. VII., The Courtier. VIII., The Churchman. IX., The 
 Official. X., The Lawyer. Appendix I., Notes and References to 
 Chapters I. — X. Appendix II., The Darrell Papers. 
 
 “ People who wish to understand the manners and customs of our 
 ancestors of the sixteenth century as they really were, and not as they ought 
 to have been, cannot do better than read it.” — 7'ruth. 
 
 “Mr. Hall is a complete master of the complex economic history of the 
 time ; and it is not the least of the various merits of his book that it follows 
 out such familiar but abstract facts as the competition for land, or the 
 general rise of prices, in all the graphic detail of individual lives.” — Academy. 
 
 “The volume contains some very curious illustrations and interesting 
 statistics. Vastly entertaining is the account of ' Wild Darrell’s .Diet’ — just 
 three hundred years ago — especially if we contrast it with the hotel bills of 
 the present day.” — Pu?ich. 
 
 “It is admirably got up, and is illustrated with a large coloured folding 
 view of London of very great interest.” — Notes 6° Queries. 
 
 “ Most curious and suggestive.” — Saturday Review . 
 
 3 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Christ and Democracy : 
 
 By Rev. Chas. W. Stubbs, M. A., Vicar of Stokenham, South Devon. 
 Crown 8 vo, cloth, y. 6 d. 
 
 " Broad, liberal, and sympathetic, it displays a keen insight into the social 
 needs of our day.” — Daily News. 
 
 " Full of broad sympathy with the working classes, but a sympathy that 
 never runs into a weak flattery of their follies and intellectual narrowness.” — 
 Academy. 
 
 * ‘ The book is particularly valuable as a clear statement of the views held 
 by a prominent member of the Broad Church School with regard to the 
 right attitude of the Church in political and social questions.” — Cambridge 
 Review. 
 
 The Co-operative Commonwealth: 
 
 An Exposition of Modern Socialism. 
 
 By Laurence Gronlund. 
 
 Author’s edition, with a New Preface. 
 
 266 pages, crown 8vo, cloth, 2 s. 6d. ; paper, 2 s. 
 
 “ In addition to many other merits, it is remarkable for the perfect 
 fairness of its tone and the absence of all violence and invective.” — W. H. 
 Mallock, in Si. Ja?nes's Gazette. 
 
 "An independent exposition of the Socialism of the Marx School.” — 
 Contemporary Review. 
 
 "There is no other book in the English language which contains, in a 
 concise consecutive form, all the leading tenets of Socialism.” — Bookseller. 
 
 As the Author is an American subject, and his book was first pub- 
 lished in the United States, it is necessary to order Swan Sonnen- 
 schein & Co.’s Edition of it, which is an entire reprint, with the 
 Author’s modifications and additions, and over which the Author holds 
 a Royalty from the Publishers. 
 
 The Religion of Socialism and other Essays : 
 
 By Ernest Belfort Bax, M. A. 
 
 Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 "One of the ablest and most scholarly contributions to the literature of 
 Socialism yet published.” — Literary Guide. 
 
 "A collection of brief, vivacious essays on a subject of stirring interest.” 
 — Truthseeker. 
 
 The Red International : 
 
 An Account of Contemporary Socialism in Germany, France, Great 
 Britain and Ireland, North America, Russia, Switzerland, and the 
 chief other European Countries. 
 
 By Dr. Zacher, Assessor to the Prussian Government. 
 Authorised Translation, by the Rev. E. M. Geldart, M. A. 
 With Preface and Notes. 
 
 178 closely printed pages, crown 8vo, paper boards, is. 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Common-Sense Socialism: 
 
 By N. Kempner. 
 
 Demy 8vo, cloth, 7 s. 6 d. [Just published. 
 
 The Redemption of Labour : 
 
 The Gospel of Labour and Land. 
 
 By Cecil B. Phipson. 
 
 With Eight Coloured Statistical Diagrams. 
 
 8 vo, cloth. [ Shortly . 
 
 The Blackley National Provident Insurance 
 
 Scheme : 
 
 By the Rev. J. Frome-Wilkinson. 
 
 Crown 8vo, is. 
 
 The Land and the Labourers : 
 
 Records and Experiments in Cottage Farming and Co-operative 
 Agriculture. 
 
 By Rev. Chas. W. Stubbs, M. A., Vicar of Stokenham, South Devon. 
 Second edition, with an Appendix on Dairy Farming. 
 
 Thick crown 8vo, limp cloth, is. 
 
 “We hope that 4 The Land and the Labourers * will be read by all land- 
 owners, large and small, and that the forcible arguments and eloquent 
 pleading of Mr. Stubbs will bear good fruit.” — Spectator » 
 
 Housed Beggars : 
 
 A Paper read before the British Association at Birmingham, 1886. 
 
 By Frederick Impey. 
 i2mo, paper covers, 3 d. 
 
 “An admirable pamphlet.” — Perthshire Advertiser. 
 
 Three Acres and a Cow : 
 
 Successful Small Holdings and Peasant Proprietors. 
 
 By Frederick Impey, Hon. Sec. Allotments and Small Holdings 
 Association. 
 
 With a Preface by the Rt. Hon. Jos. Chamberlain, M.P., and an 
 Appendix by the Duke of Argyll. 
 
 Crown 8 vo, paper covers, 6 d. 
 
 Rehousing of the Industrial Classes ; or, Village 
 Communities u. Town Rookeries : 
 
 By the Rev. Henry Solly. 
 
 i6mo, limp cloth, 6 d. 
 
 4 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 Hereditary Peers and Hereditary Paupers : 
 
 By Samuel Hughan. 
 
 Second and cheaper edition, 8vo, paper covers, is, 
 
 “ A clever addition to the literature which deals with the great social and 
 political problems of the day.” — Society, 
 
 The Utopian: 
 
 Demy 8vo, is. 
 
 Principal Contents. — Socialism — Overcrowding — London Go- 
 vernment — Country Labour — The House of Lords— A Scotch Farm — 
 The Rights of Children — The Reduction of Crime — Proportional Repre- 
 sentation — The Colonies to the Front. 
 
 “This book has our warmest sympathy, and we hope it may succeed as 
 much as it certainly deserves to. ” — Literary World, 
 
 The New Crusade : 
 
 By Peter the Hermit. 
 
 Illustrated. Demy 8vo, boards, 2 s, 
 
 “ It deals with various aspects of religious and philanthropic work in the 
 East End of London ; and the suggestions thrown out are thoroughly 
 practical.” — Christian World., 
 
 The Dilemmas of Labour and Education : 
 
 By Dr. Akin Karoly. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3^. 6 d. 
 
 Contents. — The Dilemma of Labour — Critical Examination of 
 “Progress and Poverty”— Brief Philosophy of Rent — The Dilemma 
 of Education — The Literary Artizan. 
 
 Thoughts of a Lifetime : 
 
 Essays on the Great Social and Political Questions of the Day. 
 
 By F. A. White, Author of “ Boys of Raby,” etc. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 35-. 6 d. 
 
 “ A series of interesting essays.” — Morning Post. 
 
 A Short History of Parliament : 
 
 By B. C. Skottowe, M.A, 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 2 s. 6 d. 
 
 [1 Second edition lioio ready. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain writes: — “Some account, in a popular form, of the 
 working of our greatest representative institution has been much wanted, and 
 you seem to me to have fulfilled your task with skill and success. I hope 
 that you may be rewarded by a large circulation.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Presents a great amount of valuable information in a lucid fashion and 
 in a very small compass.” — Scotsman. 
 
 “It deals very carefully and completely with this side of Constitutional 
 History.” — Spectator. 
 
 “This historical survey of 336 pages covers an immense space of ground, 
 beginning with the Witan and ending with Mr. Biggar.” — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 “Clear, lively, and anecdotic.” — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 5 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 The Russian Storm Cloud : 
 
 Or, Russia in her Relations to her Neighbouring States. 
 
 By S. Stepniak. 
 
 8vo, cloth, 12 s. 6d. 
 
 “Any one desirous of studying the political question of the day— the 
 strength and importance of Russia — cannot do better than read ‘The 
 Russian Storm Cloud.* *’ — Academy. 
 
 “Stepniak’s obvious self-restraint and moderation, combined with his 
 avowal of revolutionary sympathies, greatly enhance the value of his political 
 forecast .” — Saturday Review. 
 
 “The most interesting book Stepniak has yet put forth.”— St. James s 
 Gazette. 
 
 “ We read the book with breathless interest, for the theme is absorbing, 
 and the literary treatment of it is equal to the occasion .” — Edinburgh Daily 
 Review. 
 
 “In this volume ‘Stepniak’ is at his best; the work is thoughtful, and 
 throws not a little light on more than one dark corner of European politics.” 
 — A lien s Indian Mail. 
 
 The Russian Peasantry : 
 
 By S. Stepniak. 
 
 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Russia, Political and Social : 
 
 By L. Tikhomirov. 
 8 vo, cloth, 12 s. 6d. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 
 [Just published. 
 
 The New Liberal Programme : 
 
 Contributed by Representatives of the Liberal Party. 
 With a Lithographed Letter from Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Edited by Andrew Reid, 
 
 Editor of “ Why I am a Liberal,” “ Gladstone or Salisbury ? ” etc., etc. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 2 s. 
 
 Amongst the Contributors are: 
 
 The Earl of Aberdeen. 
 Lord Thurlow. 
 
 Mr. Labouchere. 
 
 Mr. Jacob Bright. 
 
 Viscount Kilcoursie. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Burt. 
 
 Sir B. Walter Foster. 
 And other Leaders of the Party. 
 
 “From the 30 contributions included here, an excellent idea maybe obtained 
 as to the aspirations of the more advanced members of the party of progress.” — 
 Literary World. 
 
 England and Her Colonies : 
 
 The Five Best Essays on Imperial Federation 
 submitted to 
 
 the London Chamber of Commerce 
 for their Prize Competition, and recommended for publication by the 
 judges, Mr. J. A. Froude, Professor Seeley, and Sir Rawson 
 W. Rawson. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth neat, 2s. ; or paper covers, ir. 
 
 [ Just published. 
 
 6 
 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 
 
 The Unit of Imperial Federation: 
 
 By H. Mortimer-Franklyn. 
 
 8 vo, cloth, ior. 6d. 
 
 “The work is really a powerful and valuable dissection of the best known 
 schemes for Imperial Federation, but contains also an excellent development 
 of a more moderate and practicable plan. The sixth chapter is alone 
 sufficient to sell the volume.” — Athenaeum. 
 
 “A work which is not only worth reading, but which should have a 
 considerable influence in convincing those who are in a state of indecision as 
 to the future of Great Britain, her colonies and her possessions.” — Chamber 
 of Commerce Journal. 
 
 “ Full of useful information.” — Literary World. 
 
 Party and Patriotism ; or, The Degeneracy of 
 
 Politics : 
 
 By Sydney E. Williams, Barrister-at*Law. 
 
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 Moral .Side of Politics — Party Government— Party Organization and 
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