conduct, and the same proneness to outrage having then characterised
the English pauper labourer which are now too generally the
characteristics of the Irish peasant. An abuse of a good law caused
the evil in the one case, and a removal of that abuse is now rapidly
effecting a remedy. In the other case the evil appears to have arisen
rather from the want than the abuse of a law; but the corrective for
both will, I believe, be found to be essentially the same.'

The expectation that such a neglected people, made wretched by bad
land laws, should be loyal, was surely unreasonable. For them,
it might be said, there was no Government, no protection, no
encouragement. There could not be more tempting materials for
agitators to work upon. Lord Cloncurry vividly sketches the state
of things resulting from the want of principle and earnestness among
politicians in dealing with Irish questions at that time.

'From the Union up to the year 1829, the type of British colonial
government was the order of the day. The Protestants were upheld as
a superior caste, and paid in power and official emoluments for their
services in the army of occupation. During the second viceroyalty of
Lord Anglesea, an effort was made by him to evoke the energies of the
whole nation for its own regeneration. That effort was defeated by
the conjoint influence of the cowardice of the English cabinet,
the petulance of Mr. Stanley, and the unseasonable violence and
selfishness of the lately emancipated popular leaders. Upon Lord
Anglesea's recall the modern Whig model of statemanship was set up and
followed: popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the
discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used from
time to time for party purposes; the people were hung and bayoneted
when their roused passions exceeded the due measure of factious