His study-story of some Irish estate, granted by Queen Elizabeth to an
English nobleman, showed how language might determine history. He noted
there, a force at work that tended to cloud the mind and influence the
imagination, in considering such affairs. The estate was called 'a
princely property,' and the new holder was the 'aristocratic owner of the
soil.' He had 'extensive lands in England;' perhaps he had 'the most
beautiful demesne' and 'the finest mansion' in that country. If the
Elizabethan landlord, planted in Ireland, drove along the high road, he
was described as the 'noble occupant of the carriage.' Did he spend, on
the improvement of his property, a little of the wealth won by the toil,
privation, and suffering of others, why, he was credited with 'unbounded
liberality.'

So, down the centuries, the effect being that sympathy was involuntarily
drawn to all this rank, wealth, and ease. Similarly, by an unconscious
process of mind, there disappeared from the public eye the gaunt faces,
the bent bodies, of those who gave to rank the means of wealth and ease.
Contemplating the plight, to which the people of Ireland had fallen in
his soldiering days, Sir George Grey exclaimed, 'What intellect and power
were lost to the nation! What must have been the yearnings and agonies
undergone by many noble minds, feeling capable of great things, perhaps
even of rescuing their country from the misery in which it was sunk!'

Remove such people to a new atmosphere in the Colonies, where their
natural attainments could have just scope, and behold a fairy change!
They would yield leaders of citizenship, men capable of shaping nations
and legislatures, the laws of which the Old World would be glad to copy.
Sir George could place the fruit of history, what had come about, in the
remote basket of his hopes.