should be conducted in safety to the Pale. In these two instances we
have a thorough insight into the character of the invader and the
invaded: so that not another word need be said upon this part of the
subject.

And in this manner have the O'Neills and the Irish fought the English
up to the present hour. Circumstances have, we know, from time to
time, caused a lull in the tempest of arms, but the moment
opportunity served the smouldering fires burst forth anew. Not a
single day of pure and happy sunshine has ever obtained between
England and Ireland, since the flag of the former first flew over the
latter. Throughout every single hour of seven hundred long years,
Ireland has been secretly plotting or openly fighting against
England. Not one solitary reign, from Henry II down to Victoria I,
but has been marked with Irish dissatisfaction of English rule.
Either in the aggregate or in detail, the Irish people have,
throughout that long period, been constantly asserting their right to
independence, and their unalterable antipathy to the presence of a
foreign power upon their shores. And the same spirit that fought the
Henrys, Elizabeth, William and the Georges, is alive still, and
lighting their descendants to-day; 1688, 1798, 1848, and 1868 are all
episodes of the same history; and the volume now must soon be closed.
Humanity and civilisation, common justice and the laws of nations,
demand that a people who have battled against tyranny and usurpation
for seven successive centuries, and who have still preserved intact
their identity, their traditions and their altars, shall be no longer
subjected to the brute force and infamous exactions of a freebooter
who has so long played false to every principle of honor, and who has
been the highwayman of powers and principalities for countless
generations.