most bloody and pernicious warfare was carried on upon the borders--
sometimes for something, sometimes for nothing--most commonly for
cows. The Irish, over whom the sovereigns of England affected a
sort of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their own laws,
and so very little connection had they with the justice of the
invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman as it
was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where
the defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and
that therefore defendant had a right to kill him--and upon the proof
of Hibernicism, acquittal followed of course.

When the English army mustered in any great strength, the Irish
chieftains would do exterior homage to the English Crown; and they
very frequently, by this artifice, averted from their country the
miseries of invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, till
the rebellion which took place in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of
which that politic woman availed herself to the complete subjugation
of Ireland. In speaking of the Irish about the reign of Elizabeth
or James I., we must not draw our comparisons from England, but from
New Zealand; they were not civilised men, but savages; and if we
reason about their conduct, we must reason of them as savages.


"After reading every account of Irish history," says Mr. Parnell,
"one great perplexity appears to remain: How does it happen, that,
from the first invasion of the English till the reign of James I.,
Ireland seems not to have made the smallest progress in civilisation
or wealth?

"That it was divided into a number of small principalities, which