effected by a judicious and able Government _on the spot_. Ireland, in
its present state, cannot be governed in England. If insubordination
compels you to give, how are you to retain by law what you propose to
maintain while insubordination remains? It can only be by establishing
completely the empire of the law.'

Sir Archibald Alison ascribed the unhappy relations of classes in
Ireland to what he calls 'the atrocious system of confiscation, which,
in conformity with feudal usages, the victors introduced on every
occasion of rebellion against their authority.' Sir George Nicholls
has shown, in his valuable history of the Irish poor law, that as
early as 1310 the parliament assembled at Kilkenny resolved that none
should keep Irish, or kern, in time of peace to live upon the poor of
the country; 'but those which will have them shall keep them at their
own charges, so that the free tenants and farmers be not charged with
them.' And 130 years afterwards, the parliament assembled in Dublin
declared that divers of the English were in the habit of maintaining
sundry thieves, robbers, and rebels, and that they were to be adjudged
traitors for so doing, and suffer accordingly. In 1450, this class
of depredators had increased very much, and by their 'thefts and
manslaughters caused the land to fall into decay, poverty wasting it
every day more and more; whereupon it was ordained that it should
be lawful for every liege man to kill or take notorious thieves, and
thieves found robbing, spoiling, or breaking houses; and that every
man that kills or takes any such thieves shall have one penny of every
plough, and one farthing of every cottage within the barony where the
manslaughter is done, for every thief.' These extracts show a very
barbarous state of society, but Sir George Nicholls remarks that
at the same period the condition of England and Scotland was very
similar, save only that that of Ireland was aggravated by the civil