t which has often,
in desperate extremities, retrieved the fallen fortunes of nations.
Betrayed, deserted, disorganized, unprovided with resources, begirt with
enemies, the noble city was still no easy conquest. Whatever an
engineer might think of the strength of the ramparts, all that was most
intelligent, most courageous, most highspirited among the Englishry of
Leinster and of Northern Ulster was crowded behind them. The number of
men capable of bearing arms within the walls was seven thousand; and the
whole world could not have furnished seven thousand men better qualified
to meet a terrible emergency with clear judgment, dauntless valour,
and stubborn patience. They were all zealous Protestants; and the
Protestantism of the majority was tinged with Puritanism. They had much
in common with that sober, resolute, and Godfearing class out of which
Cromwell had formed his unconquerable army. But the peculiar situation
in which they had been placed had developed in them some qualities
which, in the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The
English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which had
been enabled, by superior civilisation, by close union, by sleepless
vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a numerous and
hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in some measure
trained both to military and to political functions. Almost every one
was familiar with the use of arms, and was accustomed to bear a part in
the administration of justice. It was remarked by contemporary writers
that the colonists had something of the Castilian haughtiness of manner,
though none of the Castilian indolence, that they spoke English
with remarkable purity and correctness, and that they were, both as
militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the mother
country, [200] In all ages, men situated as the Anglosaxons in Ireland
were situated have had peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices
and virtues of masters, as opposed to the vices and virtues of slaves.
The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race,
seldom indeed fraudulent,--for fraud is the resource of the weak,--but
imperious, insolent, and cruel. Towards his brethren, on the other hand,
his conduct is generally just, kind, and even noble. His selfrespect
leads him to respect all who belong to his own order. His interest
impels him to cultivate a good understanding with those whose prompt