to the genius of each race and their peculiar circumstances, I believe it to be my duty as an historian, on however humble a scale, not only to show how our present history is affected by the past, but also to give you such a knowledge of our present history as may enable you to judge how much the country is still suffering from present grievances, occasioned by past maladministration.  Englishmen are quite aware that thousands of Irishmen leave their homes every year for a foreign country; but they have little idea of the cause of this emigration.  Englishmen are quite aware that from time to time insurrections break out in Ireland, which seem to them very absurd, if not very wicked; but they do not know how much grave cause there is for discontent in Ireland.  The very able and valuable pamphlets which have been written on these subjects by Mr. Butt and Mr. Levey, and on the Church question by Mr. De Vere, do not reach the English middle classes, or probably even the upper classes, unless their attention is directed to them individually.  The details of the sufferings and ejectments of the Irish peasantry, which are given from time to time in the Irish papers, and principally in the Irish local papers, are never even known across the Channel.  How, then, can the condition of Ireland, or of the Irish people, be estimated as it should?  I believe there is a love of fair play and manly justice in the English nation, which only needs to be excited in order to be brought to act.

But ignorance on this subject is not wholly confined to the English.  I fear there are many persons, even in Ireland, who are but imperfectly acquainted with the working of their own land laws, if, indeed, what sanctions injustice deserves the name of law.  To avoid prolixity, I shall state very briefly the position of an Irish tenant at the present day, and I shall show (1) how this position leads to misery, (2) how misery leads to emigration, and (3) how this injustice recoils upon the heads of the perpetrators by leading to rebellion.  First, the position of an Irish tenant is simply this:  he is rather worse off than a slave.  I speak advisedly.  In Russia, the proprietors of large estates worked by slaves, are obliged to feed and clothe their slaves; in Ireland, it quite depends on the will of the proprietor whether he will let his lands to his tenants on terms which will enable them to feed their families on the coarsest food, and to clothe them in the coarsest raiment If a famine occurs—­and in some parts of Ireland famines are of annual occurrence—­the landlord is not obliged to do anything for his tenant, but the tenant must pay his rent.  I admit there are humane landlords in Ireland; but these are questions of fact, not of feeling.  It is a most flagrant injustice that Irish landlords should have the power of dispossessing their tenants if they pay their rents.  But this is not all; although the penal laws have been repealed, the power of the landlord