628 Has England misgoverned Ireland ? [Junz, 
that out of two hundred of those elected kings, one hundred and seventy 
came to violent deaths ! 
The flight of O’Neal having given James a fair occasion to escheat 
that chieftain’s great territories in Ulster to the crown, the monarch 
was enabled to colonize that province with English and Scots. This 
work, and the universal substitution of the English for the Brehon 
laws, which no preceding monarch had been able to accomplish, first 
gave Ireland a consolidated character; and from that epoch is to be 
dated the modern history of Ireland—a history full of storms and 
miseries—stained with the horrible massacre of the Protestants in the 
reign of the first Charles—miserable from the consequent re-conquest 
and confiscations under Cromwell, and again under William III., yet 
still gradually making progress in civilization. 
At present it appears to be altogether lost sight of, that Ireland is a con- 
quered country, peopled by two distinct races—the aboriginesandthe'chil- 
dren of the conquerors. The first forming the majority of the people, but 
the latter possessing the far greater part of the soil, the far greater por- 
tion of wealth, and consequently a more general diffusion of education. 
These two classes are now commonly distinguished as Catholics and 
Protestants ; but it would be far more intelligible, in a political point of 
view, were they to be considered as purely Irish and Anglo-Irish, since _ 
it is thus that they are considered by the purely Irish themselves. Nor — 
should it be forgotten that the infusion of so great a mass of English 
blood was not solely in the remote eras of the Plantagenets and the 
Tudors, but at the several periods of James I., Cromwell, and 
William III. Thus, although the first conquest was in the twelfth 
century, there have been subsequent ones in the seventeenth ; and at no 
period, from the reign of Henry II., up to the present hour, have the 
original inhabitants been kept in allegiance to the crown of England by 
any thing but the force of the Anglo-Irish, supported by the power of 
England. Long prior to religious distinctions, the aborigines and the 
Anglo-Irish were distinct masses ; and although religion is now the out- 
ward and visible sign which keeps them separate, it is not the less felt 
by the Catholic serfs of the soil, that their lords are not only heretics, 
but intruding foreigners. 
With that precipitancy which characterized him, Mr. Canning recog- 
nized the independence of the revolted Spanish Colonies in South 
America, because the King of France assisted the King of Spain in 
escaping from the hands of domestic rebels. With similar precipitancy 
his successor has cut the gordian knot ; and, casting off the Anglo-Irish, 
has thrown the crown of Ireland into the keeping of the aboriginal Irish. 
The system of six centuries and a half has been suddenly and at once 
departed from. The Anglo-Irish are no longer the peculiar care of the 
English government, and the right hand of her power in Ireland. 
They must now become exclusively Irish ; they must unite themselves 
with their ancient enemies; they must join them in every measure 
which is strictly Irish and anti-English. And that they will do so— 
that there will be wnited Irishmen, without distinction of ancestry, or 
religion, there can be no doubt. Irish loyalty to the crown of England 
has hitherto arisen from fear in the one party, and from the sense of pro- 
tection in the other. The protection having been withdrawn, the ‘de- 
serted party must make the best terms they can with their hereditary 
foes, and join them in rendering Ireland independent of England. 
