ple like ours, there is ever a yearning
for those relations which are, and ought to be, as natural between a
people and their government as between the children and the parent. I
say for myself, and I firmly believe I speak the sentiments of most
Irishmen when I say, that so far from experiencing satisfaction, we
experience pain in our present relations with the law and governing
power; and we long for the day when happier relations may be restored
between the laws and the national sentiment in Ireland. We Irish are
no race of assassins or "glorifiers of murder." From the most remote
ages, in all centuries, it has been told of our people that they were
pre-eminently a justice-loving people. Two hundred and fifty years
ago the predecessor of the solicitor-general--an English
attorney-general--it may be necessary to tell the learned gentleman
that his name was Sir John Davis (for historical as well as
geographical knowledge[B] seems to be rather scarce amongst the
present law officers of the crown), (laughter)--held a very different
opinion of them from that put forth to-day by the solicitor-general.
Sir John Davis said no people in the world loved equal justice more
than the Irish even where the decision was against themselves. That
character the Irish have ever borne and bear still. But if you want
the explanation of this "disesteem" and hostility for British law,
you must trace effect to cause. It will not do to stand by the river
side near where it flows into the sea, and wonder why the water
continues to run by. Not I--not my fellow-traversers--not my
fellow-countrymen--are accountable for the antagonism between law and
popular sentiment in this country. Take up the sad story where you
will--yesterday, last month, last year, last century--two centuries
ago, three centuries, five centuries, six centuries--and what will
you find? English law presenting itself to the Irish people in a
guise forbidding sympathy or respect, and evoking fear and
resentment. Take it at its birth in this country. Shake your minds
free of legal theories and legal fictions, and deal with facts. This
court where I now stand is the legal and political heir, descendant,
and representative of the first law court of the Pale six or seven
centuries ago. Within that Pale were a few thousand English settlers,
and of them alone did the law take cogniz