in
their duty, they relapsed still into their former state of independence.
Too weak to introduce order and obedience among the rude inhabitants,
the English authority was yet sufficient to check the growth of any
enterprising genius among the natives: and though it could bestow no
true form of civil government, it was able to prevent the rise of any
such form from the internal combination or policy of the Irish.[*]

* Sir J. Davies, p. 5, 6, 7, etc.

Most of the English institutions, likewise, by which that island was
governed, were to the last degree absurd, and such as no state before
had ever thought of, for preserving dominion over its conquered
provinces.

The English nation, all on fire for the project of subduing France,--a
project whose success was the most improbable, and would to them have
proved the most pernicious,--neglected all other enterprises, to which
their situation so strongly invited them, and which, in time, would have
brought them an accession of riches, grandeur, and security. The small
army which they maintained in Ireland, they never supplied regularly
with pay; and as no money could be levied on the island, which possessed
none, they gave their soldiers the privilege of free quarter upon
the natives. Rapine and insolence inflamed the hatred which prevailed
between the conquerors and the conquered: want of security among the
Irish, introducing despair, nourished still more the sloth natural to
that uncultivated people.

But the English carried further their ill-judged tyranny, instead
of inviting the Irish to adopt the more civilized customs of their
conquerors, they even refused, though earnestly solicited, to
communicate to them the privilege of their laws and every where marked
them out as aliens and as enemies. Thrown out of the protection of
justice, the natives could find no security but in force; and flying the
neighborhood of cities, which they could not approach with safety, they
sheltered themselves in their marshes and forests from the insolence of
their inhuman masters. Being treated like wild beasts, they became such;
and joining the ardor of revenge to their yet untamed barbarity, they
grew every day more intractable and more dangerous.[*]

As the English princes deemed the conquest of the dispersed Irish to be
more the object of time and patience than the source of military glory,
they willingly delegated that office to private adventurers; who,
enlisting soldiers at