of landowning according to the English tenure would be developed. In
forcing on this change, English statesmen felt convinced not only that
they were reformers, but that they were promoters of justice. To a
generation trained under the teaching of lawyers like Coke, and
accustomed to regard the tenure which prevailed in England as good in
itself, it must have appeared that to pass from the irregular dominion
of uncertain customs to the rule of clear, definite law, was little less
than a transition from anarchy and injustice to a condition of order and
equity. They acted in precisely the spirit of their descendants, who are
absolutely assured that the extension of English maxims of government
throughout India must be a blessing to the population of the country,
and shape their Egyptian policy upon their unwavering faith in the
benefits which European control must of necessity confer on Egyptian
fellahs. If, however, it is probable that King James meant well to his
Irish subjects, it is absolutely certain that his policy worked gross
wrong. His scheme only provided for the more powerful members of the
tribes, and took no account of the inferior members, each of whom in
their degree had an undeniable if somewhat indefinite interest in the
tribal land. Sir John Davis, who carried out the plan, seems to have
thought that he had gone quite far enough in erecting the sub-chiefs
into freeholders. It never occurred to him that the humblest member of
the tribe should, if strict justice were done, have received his
allotment out of the common territory; and the result of his settlement
accordingly was that the tribal land was cut up into a number of large
freehold estates which were given to the most important personages among
the native Irish, and the bulk of the people were reduced to the
condition of tenants at will.[15] An intended reform produced injustice,
litigation, misery, and discontent. The case is noticeable, for it is a
type of a thousand subsequent English attempts to reform and improve
Ireland. The rulers of the country were influenced by ideas different