STATE OF WARFARE. 361 



but to an entire people flying from Europe, where they 

 slave and suffer, to rise to an independent and proud 

 condition on the other side of the Atlantic. 



No doubt at least so it appears to me had Ireland 

 been cast in a more distant part of the ocean, in place of so 

 near to her powerful sister, her career would have been 

 a brilliant one ; or as now situated, if, instead of being 

 much the smaller island, she had been the larger of the 

 two, she would have ultimately absorbed the other, and 

 given her stamp to British civilisation. Neither the 

 national character nor the Catholic faith would have 

 been material obstacles to this so different a destiny. 

 Her whole misfortune consists in this, that, being very 

 near, she is the more feeble of the two, and also that 

 she is not near enough nor weak enough to allow herself 

 to be absorbed without resistance, the worst of all con- 

 ditions for a people. Scotland also resisted assimilation 

 with England. But besides an affinity of race and creed 

 there, which was not the case with Ireland, the proximity 

 of the two countries and disproportion in population 

 forced her in time to yield. Ireland remains conquered 

 and refractory. 



As a consequence of their unbending temperament, 

 the English will not put up with anything that does not 

 belong to themselves ; their disposition is exclusive ; 

 they have, moreover, an inveterate hatred of the Papacy, 

 which they look upon as irreconcilable with liberty. In 

 their eyes, Ireland was not only a formidable neighbour 

 and natural enemy ; it was odious as a nation, and anti- 

 pathetic to all their ideas. Unable to subdue it, England 

 sought to crush it. 



This was England's grand excuse. It would no doubt 

 have been far better for both countries had England 

 from the first adopted a more humane policy towards 



