32(1 (>X THK XATrKAI. IXKi.tr AUTY oF MKX vn 



authority to which I can make not the remotest 

 pretension, and with a weight of political responsi- 

 bility which I rejoice to think can never rest on 

 my shoulders who by no means share my opinion, 

 but who, on the contrary, deem it right to fan the 

 sparks of revenge which linger among the embers 

 of ancient discords ; and to stand between the dead 

 past and the living present, not with the healing 

 purpose of the Jewish leader, but rather to 

 intensify the plague of political strife, and hold 

 aloft the brazen image of the father's wrongs, 

 lest the children might perchance forget and for- 

 give. 



However, the question whether the fact that 

 property in land was originally acquired by force 

 invalidates all subsequent dealings in that property 

 so completely, that no lapse of time, no formal 

 legalisation, no passing from hand to hand by free 

 contract through an endless series of owners, can 

 extinguish the right of the nation to take it away 

 by force from the latest proprietor, has rather an 

 academic than a practical interest, so long as the 

 evidence that landed ownership did so arise is 

 wanting. Potent an organon as the d / 

 method may be, its employment in the region of 

 history has rarely been found to yield satisfactory 

 results; and, in this particular case, the confident 

 assertions that land was originally held in common 

 by the whole nation, and that it has been con- 



