of vexing and holding in derision the hated favourite. So these unsubdued chieftains and their subjects hated these English colonists, who were allowed to plunder them, as barbarians, whenever they could be powerful enough; and as they were considered outlaws for their refusal of the foreign yoke, so to kill a native Irishman was counted no crime, when interest or convenience made it necessary. The authority no less than Sir John Davis, an English Attorney-General is, that for the space of 350 years after the first attempted conquest, the English laws were not communicated to the people, and they had no benefit of them. They were entirely out of their protection, and might be killed at option without any redress. Consequently, they were enemies to the crown of England, and all subsequent lullabys of " a good time coming;" if under the monotonous hum they have dozed a little, yet it has only served to give their eyes a clearer vision when they have aroused from their slumber, and unsubdued, unfed, unpaid, they still give fearful proofs that a lively sense of injustice is rankling within. Here let us pause, and cheerfully render unto " Cæsar, the things that are Cæsar's." It is an historical fact, given by Moore, Taylor, and others, that it was the Normans, and not the Saxons, who were the foreign invaders and conquerors of Ireland. When the Normans first invaded it, there were scarcely any Saxons in the country but slaves, who had been purchased at the Bristol market, and a convention of the clergy, after the invasion by Dermot, declared that the success of the Normans was owing to the sin of the Irish in purchasing slaves, and all slaves were immediately set at liberty, and the Romish church now prohibits the traffic, on pain of excommunication. Another important item in the history of this people is, that before the Norman invasion, the land was held by the tenantry, at the option of the chiefs, and at a moment's warning they might be dispossessed. The Normans gladly availed themselves of this privilege, preferring serfs to solid yeomanry; thus this virtual slavery, began with the Irish, and perpetuated by the Normans, now receives its crowning finish by the English government, who, in Elizabeth's time, garnished this sepulchre afresh, by hereditary entailment, only suffering the labourer to remain, for the convenience of the landlord, who would throw him adrift whenever a whim should dictate. Let the bones of the starved multitude, in the bogs and mountains of the west, who have died without shelter in 1849, now testify to the truth, and let generations unborn stand appalled when they read the story. It needs no skill in politics to see, that there can be no mutual interest, when but one party alone is benefited, and if the Irish tenant take no interest in the landlord, who withholds from him every right of soil, he may thank his own injudicious policy, that should compel the tenant so to feel, and when any better prospect by insurrection offers, he need not be disappointed nor cry out ingratitude, though his unrewarded tenant joins the strongest party against him. Taylor, in his history of the Irish wars says, that the Norman monarchs found that the degenerate English were more difficult to manage than the Irish, their whole aim seemed to be to prevent the influence of the British government, in order to maintain their own ground. An English pale was formed embracing the first possessions of the AngloNormans, including the eastern and south-eastern coast of Ireland. Here was pronounced to be the only civilized part of Ireland, the rest were under no laws, and maintained no rights, but what were granted by force; and they barbarously fought on, mutual murderers of each other, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The faithful creature did what she could, and did it well, to make these barbarians succumb. Beside the O'Connors of Connaught, MacMurroughs of Leinster, O'Lochlans of Meath, O'Briens of Thomond, five families of O'Neils of Ulster, there were no families in Ireland but were held as aliens, and could neither sue nor be sued in the English courts of law, and whenever these aliens complained, or made any resistance to robbery or murder, a cry of rebellion was raised, and hence, whenever they have manifested any pain under the scathing, blistering, and starving, through which they have constantly been passing, a force is immediately rallied to put down the "rebellious Irish." To English history I appeal, when the statement is disputed, that whenever the Irish attempted to defend their own rightful possessions, they were denominated rebels against government, when they are not acknowledged as subjects of British government. The families just mentioned were the only "Free blood" among the Irish, and when any out of this blood were murdered, the accused had only to plead that the murdered was not of the "Free bloods," and he was acquitted. Thus affairs continued under the different kings of England. Richard Coeur de Lion left Ireland no better than he found it; his brother John, whose name is mentioned only in abhorrence by English as well as Irish, the former resisted successfully, but Ireland found no redress. This John visited Ireland in 1210, the Irish princes paid homage to him; he made a second visit and carried new English laws for his English subjects, but excluded the Irish from any participation. Henry III. in 1216, did the same, extended the privileges of Magna Charta to all but the natives; and though these despised outcasts entreated repeatedly to be brought within the English pale, they were always rejected. The foolish policy of the barons and new owners of the soil, was to keep them as outlaws, that they might oppress with impunity; so does slavery strive to hide its head; the aristocracy of Ireland then might find a fellow-feeling in the slave-holder, and now he must not wince, though he may be suspected of wanting the meekness of Moses and the justice of Solomon. It is a re markable fact that through all this oppression of the Irish, the English monarchs always turned to them for help in wars with their enemies; and against the Welsh and Scotch they have always assisted the English. Edward I. in 1272, repeated the same cruelties, mur dering the native Irish, giving no protection to man or woman in any case; yet these confiding outcasts furnished him with an immense army to attempt the conquest of the Scotch. CHAPTER III. "And Athenry's hall of slaughter Ir is truly a long road that never turns, and when a leaf is turned over for Ireland, the new side is always the worst. Edward had marched to Scotland with his Irish and Welsh army, and after some successful battles, the ever to be remembered one of Bannockburn gave the native Irish hope that they might get their freedom if they had a skilful leader; and the Ulster chiefs invited Robert Bruce to their aid. He sent his brother Edward, to whom they offered the crown of Ireland in May, 1315, and with an army of six thousand he landed in Carrickfergus; the Irish joined him, and the English settlements were destroyed without mercy. Some of the English settlers declared for Bruce-Fedlim, king of Connaught, for awhile aided the English, then went over to Bruce who was crowned at Dundalk, returned to Ulster, and at Northburgh Castle he held a court, with all the formalities of an Irish monarch. In the year following he was preparing for a new contest, when he received the sad intelligence that his ally Fedlim O'Connor had been defeated in a pitched battle, and that eleven thousand Irish were slain. This was in Galway County, near Athenry. Bruce redoubled his energy, and desolated the country to the walls of Dublin, was defeated at last, in 1317, and the English rallied to drive the invaders from the country. Famine now raged, and so dreadful was the scourge, that the dead were taken from their graves, and the flesh cut off and boiled in their skulls. The Scotch army was reduced, and again were the Irish destined to their usual fate-defeat; for Edward Bruce, in spite of all remonstrance risked a battle, with 2000 men, against an English force of 15,000, and at Tagher, near Dundalk, October, 1318, his army was mostly destroyed, and he found dead, with Sir John Maupas, lifeless, stretched on his body. Here we find the miserable Irish again, their sanguine leader dead, and they under Edward III., in a worse condition than ever. The aristocracy were most unmerciful, the English barons over them were but a step above savages, quarrelled among themselves, and the country was overspread with plunder, and slaughter. The Irish again applied for the protection of English laws, but were again denied; and though the English were determined to prevent intermarriages between the two races, yet in the remote districts they often occurred. Great efforts were made to check this, but like prohibited marriages in private life, the contest generally ends in a runaway match. Thus hated as were the savage, "rebellious" Irish, yet the savage invading English "become more Irish than the Irish themselves;" many of them renounced the English dress and put on the Irish,-took the Irish names, and used their language,—and thus became so identified that they were not known. This amalgamation has descended to the present generation, and accounts for that wide difference which is now perceivable in every part where a genuine Irish family of the "olden blood" can be traced. The stranger who enters these families, feels at once, however great or honourable they may be, that he is a free and welcome guest-that all the urbanity and kindness proffered, proceed from a sincerity of heart that cannot be misunderstood. They are polite without affectation-hospitable without ostentation-entirely free from any fear of contamination, by a generous condescension to their inferiors. Their servants are a "part * Camden. |