England
disgraced before the world. The obstinacy of George III., the splendid
resistance made by a nation assailed at once by a combination of
enemies, any one of whom alone would have seemed a formidable foe, the
victories of Rodney, the defence of Gibraltar, not only saved but
increased the renown of England, and were warnings which no foreigner
could disregard, that the loss of the American colonies, though it might
diminish the Empire, had not quenched the spirit or undermined the
strength of Great Britain. No one can suppose that a peaceful retreat
from the difficulties and responsibility of providing for the Government
of Ireland would leave to England that reputation for courage and
endurance which, even in the midst of defeat, was retained by the
generation who acknowledged the independence of America. Peaceable
surrender may avert material loss; it cannot maintain moral character.
One thing only would render the concession of Irish independence
compatible with Englishmen's respect for themselves, or with the respect
of other nations for England. This condition would be the obvious, and,
so to speak, patent conviction on the part of the whole English people,
that the grant of independence to Ireland was the fulfilment of a duty
demanded by justice. No such conviction exists, nor is it ever likely to
come into existence. Even were so great a change of English sentiment to
take place that a majority of the people became ready, on grounds of
expediency, to break up the connection between Great Britain and the
neighbouring island, it would still be hard to persuade the nation that
there was not vile treachery in refusing to stand by and support that
part of the Irish people which wished to retain the connection with
England. The treachery would approach to infamy if it should appear that
England, for the sake of her own comfort, left English subjects who had
always obeyed the law and relied on the honourable protection of the
United Kingdom at the mercy of conspirators whose lawlessness had taken
the form of cruelty and tyranny, and whose vindictiveness was certain to
punish as criminality former acts of loyalty or obedience to English
sovereignty. High-toned self-sacrifice which results in breach of faith
to associates is considered by the world at large as a particularly
odious form of hypocrisy. Nothing in the treaty between England and the
American Colonies involved more just bitterness of feeling than the
part