avies, we cannot
miss the true genius and policy of the English government there before
the Revolution, as well as during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Sir John Davies boasts of the benefits received by the natives, by
extending to them the English law, and turning the whole kingdom into
shire ground. But the appearance of things alone was changed. The
original scheme was never deviated from for a single hour. Unheard-of
confiscations were made in the northern parts, upon grounds of plots and
conspiracies, never proved upon their supposed authors. The war of
chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes; and a
regular series of operations was carried on, particularly from
Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice, and by special
commissions and inquisitions,--first under pretence of tenures, and then
of titles in the crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of the
interest of the natives in their own soil,--until this species of subtle
ravage, being carried to the last excess of oppression and insolence
under Lord Strafford, it kindled the flames of that rebellion which
broke out in 1641. By the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl
of Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the total
reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the native
Irish, and, in a great measure, too, of the first races of the English,
was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with
as solid a stability as anything in human affairs can look for. All the
penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made
after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and
scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample
upon and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect of
their fears, but of their security. They who carried on this system
looked to the irresistible force of Great Britain for their support in
their acts of power. They were quite certain that no complaints of the
natives would be heard on this side of the water with any other
sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served
only to augment their torture. Machines which could answer their
purposes so well must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed, in
England, the double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (it
would be hard to say which singly was the most odious,) shut up the
hearts of every one ag