n England," Mr. Davenant broke in passionately, "but he
will not reign in Ireland.

"But forgive me," he broke off. "I forgot, for a moment, that you are an
Englishman, and my guest."

"You need not apologize, Mr. Davenant. As I said, I am a soldier and no
politician. My ancestors were royalists, and I have no great love for the
Dutch stadtholder, who will be supported in England by the class who rose
against King Charles. At the same time, it is difficult to feel much
enthusiasm for the Stuarts. The first was a pedant. The second threw away
his chances, over and over again, by his duplicity and want of faith. The
third was utterly selfish and unprincipled. The fourth is a gloomy bigot.
Charles was, and James is, a pensioner of France. How can men be ready to
sacrifice everything for such a race as this?"

"That is not the way in which we look at it in Ireland," Mr. Davenant
said. "The wars here are waged under various pretences. Someone is goaded
into rebellion, false charges are preferred wholesale, or there is a
religious pretext; but we all know what is at the bottom of them all,
simply the greed of English adventurers for Irish land; and, not content
with having dispossessed the ancient owners of three-fourths of the
cultivated land of the country, they want the remainder, and under the
pretence that we, the descendants of the early settlers, are in sympathy
with our Irish neighbours, they have marked us out for destruction, and
already a great portion of our estates is in the hands of Cromwell's men.
So gross have been the abuses, that the commission, which the king
appointed to inquire into the seizure of our estates, only ventured to
sit one day, for the proofs brought forward were so overwhelmingly strong
that it was seen at once that, did the inquiry continue, it would be made
manifest to all the world that justice could be satisfied by nothing less
than a clear sweep of all those men who have seized our estates.

"If Ireland rises in favour of King James, it will not be for any love
for the Stuarts; but it will be to recover the land which has been
illegally wrested from us, and which, if Dutch William and his Whig
adherents gain the upper hand, will be taken from us forever. The
religious element will, of course, count for much. Already we have
suffered persecution for our religion; and, if the Whigs could have their
way, they would stamp it out utterly, with fire and sword. Things have
looked better, dur