troops. She maintained a peace establishment of 12,000 troops, and from
1767 onwards of 15,000 troops. There never seems to have been a whisper
of protest from the Catholic population against these measures, nor,
except in the matter of the American War, to which we shall come
presently, from the Protestants. It may be added that, after 1767,
Catholics in considerable numbers were surreptitiously enlisted in the
ranks, in spite of the Penal Code, and from then until the present day
have fought for the Flag as staunchly as any other class of the King's
subjects.

It never occurred to responsible English statesmen that here was ground,
firm as a rock in America, and firm enough in Ireland, on which, if only
they obeyed the instincts and maxims upon which England herself had
risen to greatness, they might build a mighty and durable Imperial
structure. That loyalty, to be genuine and lasting, must spring from
liberty was a truth they did not appreciate, and to this truth,
strangely enough, in spite of the lessons of nearly a century and a
half, a numerous school of English statesmen is still blind. It was no
doubt a fatality that the smouldering discontent both of America and
Ireland burst into flame in the reign of a monarch who endeavoured, even
within the limits of Britain, to regain the arbitrary power which had
cost their throne to the Stuarts; it was an additional fatality that the
standard of public morals among the class through which he ruled during
the period of crisis had fallen to lower depths than ever before or
since. Even incorruptible men were either weak and selfish or subject to
some cardinal defect of temper or intellect which, at times of crisis,
neutralized their genius. Chatham and Burke were the noblest figures of
the time, yet Chatham, in his highest mood a nobler and truer champion
of American liberty than Burke, was Minister--nominally, at any
rate--when the Revenue Duties imposed upon the American Colonies in 1867