Commander-in-Chief, if the Red Indian Party in Congress, containing
first-rate orators and fashionable novelists, could have turned
Presidents in and out; if half the best troops of the country were
trained with the tomahawk and half the best journalism of the capital
written in picture-writing, if later, by general consent, the Chief
known as Pine in the Twilight, was the best living poet, or the Chief
Thin Red Fox, the ablest living dramatist. If that were realised, the
English critic probably would not say anything scornful of red men;
or certainly would be sorry he said it. But the extraordinary avowal
does mark what was most peculiar in the position. This has not been the
common case of misgovernment. It is not merely that the institutions we
set up were indefensible; though the curious mark of them is that they
were literally indefensible; from Wood's Halfpence to the Irish Church
Establishment. There can be no more excuse for the method used by Pitt
than for the method used by Pigott. But it differs further from
ordinary misrule in the vital matter of its object. The coercion was not
imposed that the people might live quietly, but that the people might
die quietly. And then we sit in an owlish innocence of our sin, and
debate whether the Irish might conceivably succeed in saving Ireland.
We, as a matter of fact, have not even failed to save Ireland. We have
simply failed to destroy her.

It is not possible to reverse this judgment or to take away a single
count from it. Is there, then, anything whatever to be said for the
English in the matter? There is: though the English never by any chance
say it. Nor do the Irish say it; though it is in a sense a weakness as
well as a defence. One would think the Irish had reason to say anything
that can be said against the English ruling class, but they have not
said, indeed they have hardly discovered, one quite simple fact--that it
rules England. They are right in asking that the Irish should have a say