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transmitted to his successors, the nominal sovereignty of the whole 
island. But, although the country was thus nominally brought under 
the dominion of England, the changes produced by it in the ancient 
laws of the country could not be very material; for the power of 
the English, in Ireland, was for some centuries confined within very 
narrow limits; seldom extending beyond the bounds of what was 
called the English Pale. This District, although at all times com- 
paratively small, was more or less expanded according as the Irish 
princes were more or less united or divided amongst themselves. 
The English colonists, on the one hand, sowing dissentions amongst 
the natives, taking advantage of their weakness to extend their power 
and their territories; and, on the other hand, the Irish again 
forming leagues amongst themselves to repel the strangers and cir- 
cumscribe their dominions. 
By these occasional agreements amongst even two or three of the 
bordering Irish princes, (for the nation in general never united 
against the British colonists) the English power was frequently re- 
duced to the lowest ebb; so that nothing could have preserved them 
from total extirpation but the assistance afforded them by othier 
Trish princes and tribes, whose friendship and protection they pur- 
chased by paying them a tribute, or black rent, as it was called. 
That this black rent was continued to be paid by the English govern. 
ment in Ireland to the Irish princes, for a long period, cannot be 
denied. For the compositions with those princes securing the pay. 
ment of this Black rent are still extant; and that it continued to be 
paid so near to our own time as the 28th year of the reign of King 
Henry VIII, is proved by an act passed in the Irish Parliament of 
that year, prohibiting the future payment of black rent to the chiefs 
or princes of the Irish. 
The wars between the contending parties was of the most de- 
