rch. By armed
rebellion against their lawful king, I regret to say it, they won
rights which now most largely tend to make Scotland contented and
loyal. I say it is to be regretted that those rights were thus won;
for I say that even at best it is a good largely mixed with evil
where rights are won by resorts of violence or revolution. His
concessions to the Calvanist Fenians in Scotland did not save
Charles. The English Fenians, under their Head Centre Cromwell, drove
him from the throne and murdered him on a scaffold in London. How did
the Irish meanwhile act? They stood true to their allegiance. They
took the field for the King. What was the result? They were given
over to slaughter and plunder by the brutal soldiery of the English
Fenians. Their nobles and gentry were beggared and proscribed; their
children were sold as white slaves to West Indian planters; and their
gallant struggles for the king, their sympathy for the royalist
cause, was actually denounced by the English Fenians as "sedition,"
"rebellion," "lawlessness," "sympathy with crime." Ah, gentlemen, the
evils thus planted in our midst will survive, and work their
influence; yet some men wonder that English law is held in
"disesteem" in Ireland. Time went on, gentlemen; time went on.
Another James sat on the throne; and again English Protestant
Fenianism conspired for the overthrow of their sovereign. They
invited "foreign emissaries" to come over from Holland and Sweden, to
begin the revolution for them. They drove their legitimate king from
the throne--never more to return. How did the Irish act in that hour?
Alas! Ever too loyal--ever only too ready to stand by the throne and
laws if only treated with justice or kindliness--they took the field
for the king, not against him. He landed on our shores; and had the
English Fenians rested content with rebelling themselves, and allowed
us to remain loyal as we desired to be, we might now be a
neighbouring but friendly and independent kingdom under the ancient
Stuart line. King James came here and opened his Irish parliament in
person. Oh, who will say in that brief hour at least the Irish nation
was not reconciled to the throne and laws? King, parliament, and
people, were blended in one element of enthusiasm, joy, and hope, the
first time for ages Ireland had known such a joy. Yes--

We, too, had o