sentiment.  Everything goes wrong under such a state of things.  The ivy will cling to the oak, and the tendrils of the vine reach forth towards strong support.  But more anxiously and naturally still does the human heart instinctively seek an object of reverence and love, as well as of protection and support, in law, authority, sovereignty.  At least, among a virtuous people like ours, there is ever a yearning for those relations which are, and ought to be, as natural between a people and their government as between the children and the parent.  I say for myself, and I firmly believe I speak the sentiments of most Irishmen when I say, that so far from experiencing satisfaction, we experience pain in our present relations with the law and governing power; and we long for the day when happier relations may be restored between the laws and the national sentiment in Ireland.  We Irish are no race of assassins or “glorifiers of murder.”  From the most remote ages, in all centuries, it has been told of our people that they were pre-eminently a justice-loving people.  Two hundred and fifty years ago the predecessor of the solicitor-general—­an English attorney-general—­it may be necessary to tell the learned gentleman that his name was Sir John Davis (for historical as well as geographical knowledge[B] seems to be rather scarce amongst the present law officers of the crown), (laughter)—­held a very different opinion of them from that put forth to-day by the solicitor-general.  Sir John Davis said no people in the world loved equal justice more than the Irish even where the decision was against themselves.  That character the Irish have ever borne and bear still.  But if you want the explanation of this “disesteem” and hostility for British law, you must trace effect to cause.  It will not do to stand by the river side near where it flows into the sea, and wonder why the water continues to run by.  Not I—­not my fellow-traversers—­not my fellow-countrymen—­are accountable for the antagonism between law and popular sentiment in this country.  Take up the sad story where you will—­yesterday, last month, last year, last century—­two centuries ago, three centuries, five centuries, six centuries—­and what will you find?  English law presenting itself to the Irish people in a guise forbidding sympathy or respect, and evoking fear and resentment.  Take it at its birth in this country.  Shake your minds free of legal theories and legal fictions, and deal with facts.  This court where I now stand is the legal and political heir, descendant, and representative of the first law court of the Pale six or seven centuries ago.  Within that Pale were a few thousand English settlers, and of them alone did the law take cognizance.  The Irish nation—­the millions outside the Pale—­were known only as “the king’s Irish enemie.”  The law classed them with the wild beasts of nature whom it was lawful to slay.  Later on in our history we find the Irish near the Pale sometimes asking to be admitted to