lo History of the English Landed Interest. 



each large country house became a fortress. The English 

 settlement at Kenmare formed itself into a military colony, 

 as though the luetic system of land tenure was the essence 

 of its being. That cluster of eighty dwellings around the 

 castle of Enniskillen was neither more nor less than a typical 

 feudal village of some mediaeval barony. The loyalists of 

 Londonderry converted their neighbourhood into just such 

 another fortified rallying point ; and the neighbouring coun- 

 try gentry gathered to one or other of these strategic centres, 

 as though they were the suhfeudarii of their respective mili- 

 tary governors. The native Irish devastated the country, 

 murdered their foes, destroyed flocks and herds, pillaged houses, 

 and altogether behaved themselves as though their innate 

 tribal savagery had once more sprung into being. The 

 aimless butchery of fifty thousand cattle and four hundred 

 thousand sheep in a few weeks ^ is an episode of war which 

 demonstrates not only the bloodthirstiness of the one side 

 and the wealth of the other, but also the advanced stage 

 which Irish farming had already reached, and the conse- 

 quent heavy loss of capital which such savagery entailed. 

 The Irish leaders, many of them corresponding with the 

 English squire in social standing, regained, so long as the 

 struggle lasted, much of their old septal status, which served 

 them in good stead when their estates were confiscated and 

 they were turned loose to beg their bread amongst their 

 former followers. And here again a national contrast of 

 character stands out; for when the repeal of the Act of 

 Settlement in 1689 had beggared the Anglo-Saxon landlord, 

 he at once took his brains and energy elsewhere, and set to 

 work to refit his shattered fortunes on a more congenial soil. 



Whether, then, we examine Irish history as a whole, or take 

 some eventful portion of it, such as the period just described, 

 we are forced to the conclusion that the Celt for some reason 

 or other has been less adapted by nature to a system of feudal 

 land tenure than the Anglo-Saxon. A study of Scottish history 

 only tends to strengthen this theory ; but in turning our 



* Macaulay's History of England, c. xii. 



