mber, had, with few exceptions, adhered to the
Church of Rome. Among them resided about two hundred thousand colonists,
proud of their Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith. [150]

The great preponderance of numbers on one side was more than compensated
by a great superiority of intelligence, vigour, and organization on the
other. The English settlers seem to have been, in knowledge, energy,
and perseverance, rather above than below the average level of the
population of the mother country. The aboriginal peasantry, on the
contrary, were in an almost savage state. They never worked till they
felt the sting of hunger. They were content with accommodation inferior
to that which, in happier countries, was provided for domestic cattle.
Already the potato, a root which can be cultivated with scarcely any
art, industry, or capital, and which cannot be long stored, had become
the food of the common people. [151] From a people so fed diligence and
forethought were not to be expected. Even within a few miles of Dublin,
the traveller, on a soil the richest and most verdant in the world, saw
with disgust the miserable burrows out of which squalid and half naked
barbarians stared wildly at him as he passed. [152]

The aboriginal aristocracy retained in no common measure the pride
of birth, but had lost the influence which is derived from wealth and
power. Their lands had been divided by Cromwell among his followers.
A portion, indeed, of the vast territory which he had confiscated had,
after the restoration of the House of Stuart, been given back to the
ancient proprietors. But much the greater part was still held by English
emigrants under the guarantee of an Act of Parliament. This act had been
in force a quarter of a century; and under it mortgages, settlements,
sales, and leases without number had been made. The old Irish gentry
were scattered over the whole world. Descendants of Milesian chieftains
swarmed in all the courts and camps of the Continent. Those despoiled
proprietors who still remained in their native land, brooded gloomily
over their losses, pined for the opulence and dignity of which they had
been deprived, and cherished wild hopes of another revolution. A person
of this class was described by his countrymen as a gentleman who would
be rich if justice were done, as a gentleman who had a fine estate if
he could only get it. [153] He seldom betook himself to any peaceful
calling. Trade, indeed, he thought a far