“Shipped for the Barbadoes.” 341 
all the exiles were of the lower condition—many being merely bound to work for 
wages) it will be better to cast a glance backwards and to sketch as 
briefly as possible the course of events which brought the proud and 
warlike inhabitants of Ireland to this pass. They had expelled the 
Dane and worn down the Norman. To slaughter and famine they were 
not unused, but the Puritan methods had the advantage of a compre 
hensive simplicity and of a united driving force. Part of Connaught was 
to be made an Irish Wales with the Shannon as an Offa’s Dyke. We 
now «know that the plan was doomed to failure and would not have succeeded 
under a dynasty of Cromwells, but in the years 1649 to 1660 the struggle of 
centuries appeared to be drawing to a bloody and tragic close. 
To us who have seen by a few years of constructive policy, of which 
both the great parties in the United Kingdom can claim the credit, an indus- 
trious and thriving population of small proprietors rapidly replacing the 
restless and turbulent peasants of the shattered feudal regime imposed upon 
the island by James and Cromwell, the days and manners of the Protectorate 
seem farther off than the days of Hengist and Thorkill or the manners of 
Chaka, King of the Zulus. ““ We kept the peace ’’ but next month or year 
we broke it and expelled the inhabitants. “ We offered quarter” but sent 
those who accepted it to a living death in the sun-scorched cane-fields. “ We 
meddle with no man’s conscience ” but if he worships according to his own 
we will pike or hang him, and whether he does or not we will take away 
his property but will allow him if he is otherwise inoffensive and we can 
find nothing against him, to take possession of somebody else’s property 
in the more boggy and mountainous parts of Connaught. It is too painful a 
story to dwell upon at any length and there will soon be little left but the faint 
trace of a cicatrice long so red and raw from the Roundhead sword. <A better 
understanding between the races and creeds has arisen, and great, wise, and 
truly imperial sovereigns like Edward VII. and George V. have replaced fanatics 
like Cromwell and Ireton, or monarchs faithless in word, deed and thought like 
the second Charles or the second James. I do not know at the present time 
any part of the dominions of the gracious Patron of this Society which would 
produce at need in proportion to the population more enthusiastic defenders 
of the Empire than that no longer distressful country which once poured out 
(through having stubbornly defended throne and altar, be it ever remembered) 
so many wretched men, women, girlsand boys ‘‘in custody for the Barbadoes.”’ 
That fighting talent which had once to be devoted to the service of foreign 
and often hostile kings can now be exercised in the service of their own, nor can 
it be suggested by their keenest critic that the older races and creed represented 
in the island have not contributed in the British ranks to the renown which 
valour and fidelity won for them elsewhere in those evil times when they 
faced the seas as friendless exiles. 
The time has come when both nations can write or speak of those terrible 
years without bitterness, even if the recollections encouragea slightly sardonic 
spirit, and it would be folly to shrink entirely from the unpleasant subject 
because of its unpleasantness. Ignorance or forgetfulness of the past is a poor 
