whilst there is, of course, no reason to suppose that the original Norman invaders of Ireland were a whit worse than the Normans they left behind them in England, or that the Cromwellian settlers did not possess the virtues which distinguished Puritan soldiers.  What De Beaumont really means is that the aristocracy, or landed gentry, have been from first to last placed in a false position, which has led to their exhibiting the vices, with few of the virtues, of aristocratic government.

[11] Compare 1 De Beaumont, ‘L’Irlande Sociale,’ &c., pp. 253-256.

[12] See Dicey, ‘Law of the Constitution’ (Second Edition), pp. 181-210; and compare 1 De Beaumont, ‘L’Irlande Sociale,’ &c., pp. 253-299.

[13] Cromwell’s reputation as a statesman suffers even more than that of most great men from the indiscriminating eulogy of admirers.  The merit of his Irish policy was not his severity to Catholics, but his equity to Protestants.  If he did not acknowledge the equality of man, he at any rate acknowledged what English statesmanship before and after his time refused to admit—­the equality of Englishmen, at least when Protestants.  His policy handed down to us a legacy of justifiable hatred on the part of Irish Catholics.  But it is the fault not of the Protector, but of his successors, that his policy did not ensure to England the loyalty of every Protestant in Ireland.

[14] The penal laws against the Catholics in England were as severe as those in Ireland.  Their practical effect and working was however very different in the two countries.  See 1 Lecky,’History of England,’ pp. 268-310.

[15] See Walpole, ‘Short History of the Kingdom of Ireland,’ p. 176.

[16] See a speech of Lord Clare made in defence of the Bill for Establishing the Union with England, and republished by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union.

[17] 1 De Beaumont, ‘L’Irlande Sociale,’ p. 251.  It is of primary consequence that Englishmen should realise the undoubted fact, that agrarian conspiracies and agrarian outrages, such as those which baffle the English Government in Ireland, are known to foreign countries.  For centuries the question of tenant-right, in a form very like that in which it arises in Ireland, has been known in the parts of France near Saint-Quentin under the name of the droit de marche.  In France, as in Ireland, tenants have claimed a right unknown to the law, and have enforced the right by outrage, by boycotting, by murder.  The Depointeur is the land grabber, and is treated by French peasants precisely as the Irish land grabber is treated by Irish peasants.  See Calonne, ‘La Vie Agricole, sous l’Ancien Regime,’ pp. 66-69.  Precisely the same phenomena have appeared in parts of Belgium, where for centuries there has been, in respect of land, the conflict to which we are accustomed in Ireland, between the law of the Courts and the law of the people.  “From the commencement of the year 1836 to the end of 1842 there had been”