I Have Looked With Great Concern And Astonishment At The Lands Already
Wasted And Almost Without Inhabitants.
I have read with great pain the
Lord Lieutenant's speech at Belfast, aspersing the country as disloyal
and threatening them with greater tyranny.
The people are disloyal, to a
system of oppression and absolutism which neither they nor their fathers
were able to bear; but I believe from my heart that they are more loyal
to Her Majesty than their oppressors are, for the system has made them
oppressors. Only notice, from Mr. Smith's evidence at the Land Court
recently, concerning the Enniskillen estate, for which he is agent, it
is proven that even in Protestant Ulster a landlord can abolish the
Ulster custom - the root of Ulster's exceptional prosperity - at the
motion of his own will. In the trials for turbary in the Kiltyclogher
cases a rule made by a landlord in his office overrides even a lease,
and is accepted as _de facto_ law in the court.
These things have convinced me that the exterminating landlords are the
parties who are guilty of high treason against the commonwealth of
England. The loyalty of Irish Catholics to a country that had scant
justice to give them has been proven on every battle field from far
India to the Crimea. No history of England's wars in these later times
can be written truly without acknowledging the Irish blood given like
water for England's honor.
Scotland has been more favored of late years, although the time is not
so far distant when her language, her dress and ancient customs were
also proscribed.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 402 of 404
Words from 106627 to 106894
of 107283
