never more fully shown than in these appeals to American opinion against the Irish race and creed.  Unfortunately the practical result of them was the reverse of what he intended.  He preached the gospel of force.  Thus he expressed it in reply to Cromwell’s critics:  “I say frankly, that I believe the control of human things in this world is given to the strong, and those who cannot hold their own ground with all advantage on their side must bear the Consequences of their weakness.”  The Holy Inquisition, might have used this language in Italy or in Spain.  Any tyrant might use it at any time.  It was denied in anticipation by an older and higher authority than Carlyle in the words “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”  There is a better morality, if indeed there be a worse, than reverence for big battalions.

Sceptre and crown
Must topple down,
And in the earth be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade;

Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

Froude seldom did things by halves, and his apology for Cromwell is not half-hearted.  He applauds the celebrated pronouncement, “I meddle with no man’s conscience; but if you mean by liberty of conscience, liberty to have the mass, that will not be suffered where the Parliament of England has power.”  A great deal has happened since Cromwell’s time, and the mass is no longer the symbol of intolerance, if only because the Church of Rome has no power to persecute.  Cromwell would have had a short shrift if he had fallen into the hands of mass-goers.  To tolerate intolerance is a Christian duty, and therefore possible for an individual.  Whether it was possible for the Lord General in 1650 is a question hardly suited for popular treatment on a public platform.  All that he did was right in Froude’s eyes, including the prescription of “Hell or Connaught” for “the men whose trade was fighting, who had called themselves lords of the soil,” and the abolition of the Irish Parliament.  “I as an Englishman,” said Froude, “honour Cromwell and glory in him as the greatest statesman and soldier our race has produced.  In the matter we have now in hand I consider him to have been the best friend, in the best sense, to all that was good in Ireland.”  This is of course an opinion which can honestly be held.  But to the Irish race all over the world such language is an irritating defiance, and they simply would not listen to any man who used it.

The expulsion of Presbyterians under Charles ii. was foolish as well as cruel, for it deprived the English Government in Ireland of their best friends, and supplied the American colonies with some of their staunchest soldiers in the War of Independence.  Enough were left, however, to immortalise the siege of Derry, while the native Irish failed to distinguish themselves, or, in plain English, ran away, at the Battle of the Boyne, and the defeat of James ii.