lied by men who had long
suffered oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed
from slaves into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated
usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was
said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by
some foul name. They were the terror of every Protestant innkeeper; for,
from the moment when they came under his roof, they ate and drank every
thing: they paid for nothing; and by their rude swaggering they scared
more respectable guests from his door, [120]

Such was the state of Ireland when the Prince of Orange landed at
Torbay. From that time every packet which arrived at Dublin brought
tidings, such as could not but increase the mutual fear and loathing of
the hostile races. The colonist, who, after long enjoying and abusing
power, had now tasted for a moment the bitterness of servitude, the
native, who, having drunk to the dregs all the bitterness of servitude,
had at length for a moment enjoyed and abused power, were alike sensible
that a great crisis, a crisis like that of 1641, was at hand. The
majority impatiently expected Phelim O'Neil to revive in Tyrconnel. The
minority saw in William a second Over.

On which side the first blow was struck was a question which Williamites
and Jacobites afterwards debated with much asperity. But no question
could be more idle. History must do to both parties the justice which
neither has ever done to the other, and must admit that both had fair
pleas and cruel provocations. Both had been placed, by a fate for which
neither was answerable, in such a situation that, human nature being
what it is, they could not but regard each other with enmity. During
three years the government which might have reconciled them had
systematically employed its whole power for the purpose of inflaming
their enmity to madness. It was now impossible to establish in Ireland
a just and beneficent government, a government which should know no
distinction of race or of sect, a government which, while strictly
respecting the rights guaranteed by law to the new landowners, should
alleviate by a judicious liberality the misfortunes of the ancient
gentry. Such a government James might have established in the day of
his power. But the opportunity had passed away: compromise had become
impossible: the two infuriated castes were alike convinced that it was
necessary to oppress or to be oppressed, and