assassins and robbers, with a view to striking terror to the hearts
of the natives, and driving them into a recognition of the right of
the usurper to rule over them, and dispose as he saw fit of their
property and persons. This right, however, was never conceded in even
the most remote degree; for, notwithstanding that the colony of
foreign spears and battle-axes waxed stronger daily, the Irish
element, disunited though it was, fought it constantly. True, that an
occasional lull characterized the tempest as it swept and eddied
through each successive generation; but never did Ireland assume the
yoke of the oppressor voluntarily, or bow, for even a single moment,
in meek submission to his unauthorized sway.

It would require volumes to recount a tithe of the frightful atrocities
practiced by the invaders upon the rightful and unoffending owners of
the soil during the long period just referred to, and especially towards
its close, when that lewd monster, Elizabeth, disgraced her sex and the
age. No language can describe adequately the various diabolical modes of
extermination practiced against all those who refused to bow the knee
and kiss the English rod. No code of laws ever enacted in even the most
barbarous age of the world, could compare in fiendish cruelty with the
early penal enactments of the Pale--so forcibly supplemented in after
years by the perjured "Dutch boor" and the inhuman Georges. The foul
fiend himself could not have devised laws more diabolical in their
character or destructive in their application. So close were their
meshes and sweeping their folds, that the possibility of escape was
obviously out of the question; as their victim was met and entangled at
every turn, until at last the fatal blow descended, and the unequal
contest was ended. But more infamous and unjustifiable still, when "the
foul invader" found himself occasionally unable to cope successfully
with his brave and chivalrous antagonists, he had recourse to a darker