the landlords would have held their own, or whether the English system
of tenure would long ago have made way for one more in conformity with
native traditions; whether hostile classes and races would at last have
established some _modus vivendi_ favourable to individual freedom, or
whether despotism under some of its various forms would have been
sanctioned by the acquiescence of its subjects, are matters of uncertain
speculation. A conclusion which, though speculative, is far less
uncertain is, that Ireland if left absolutely to herself would have
arrived like every other country at some lasting settlement of her
difficulties. To the establishment of such a reign of order the British
connection has been fatal; revolution has been suppressed at the price
of permanent disorganisation, the descendants of colonists and natives
have not coalesced into a nation, and a country which has never known
independence has never borne the burdens or learnt the lessons of
national responsibility. Disastrous as this result has been, it is
impossible to say who it was that at any given point was to blame for
it. Had France been attached to and dependent upon a powerful neighbour,
this sovereign state must have checked the cruelties and the injustice
of the Reign of Terror. But the forcible extinction of Jacobinism by an
external power would, we can hardly doubt, have arrested the progress
and been fatal to the prosperity of France. Ireland, in short, which
under English rule has lacked good administration, has by the same rule
been inevitably prevented from attempting the cure of deeply rooted
evils by the violent though occasionally successful remedy of
revolution.

Thirdly,--From the original flaw in the connection between the two
countries has resulted, almost as it were of necessity, the religious
oppression, which, recorded as it has been in the penal laws, has become
the opprobrium of English rule in Ireland.