Nor let it be supposed that this is due to a peculiar idiosyncrasy in Ireland—­to some unhappy congenital malformation, or some original taint in the blood.  It has been often asked whether England would have submitted to similar treatment from Ireland if their relations were reversed.  Englishmen have not answered that question because they cannot understand it.  They find it difficult to apply the Divine maxim, ‘Do as you would be done by.’ in their dealings with other nations.  But they can scarcely conceive its application to their dealings with Ireland, any more than the American planter could have conceived the duty of fraternizing with his negroes.  If we draw from this fact the logical inference, we shall be at a loss to discern whether the Celt or the Saxon suffers more from the moral perversity of his nature.  The truth is, both are perverted by their unnatural relations, which are a standing outrage on the spirit of Christianity.

The Emperor of Austria long laboured to govern one nation through another and for another, in right of conquest, and we know the result in Italy and Hungary.  Lombardy, though well cultivated and materially prosperous, could never be reconciled to Austrian rule.  Even the nobility could not be tempted to appear at court.  Venetia was more passionately and desperately hostile, and was consequently crushed by military repression, till the country was turned into a wilderness, and the capital once so famous for its commerce and splendour, became one of the most melancholy scenes of ruin and desolation to be found in the world.  The Austrians, and those who sympathised with Austria as the great conservative power of the Continent, ascribed all this to the perversity of the Italian nature, and to the influence of agitators and conspirators.  Austria was bountiful to her Italian subjects, and would be more lenient if she could, but their vices of character and innate propensity to rebellion, rendered necessary a system of coercion.  Hence the prisons were full of political offenders; the soldier and the executioner were constantly employed in maintaining law and order.  All the Emperor wanted was that his Italian provinces should be so thoroughly amalgamated with Austria, as to form one firmly united empire, and that the inhabitants should be content with their position as Austrian subjects, ruled by Austrian officials.  But this was precisely what they could not or would not be.  ‘They smiled at the drawn dagger and defied its point.’  They would sacrifice their lives, but they would not sacrifice their nationality at the bidding of an alien power.