testantism and damnable error.

This is only true, perhaps, of the uneducated part of the population; but it should be recollected, that when that population is immense, as in the present case, its very prejudices merit some degree of attention.

The circumstance to which I have now alluded has given, I am persuaded, a very considerable influence to the Catholic superstition in Ireland; and there is no way in which that influence can either be counteracted or diminished, but by the adoption and prosecution of plans very different from those that have been hitherto pursued in reference to that country.

It may, perhaps, be expected that I should deduce some inference from the Irish language respecting the probable origin of the Irish people. It has appeared that this is, with a very few variations, entirely the same as the Gaelic : it has also been shewn, that the great outlines of the Irish character are the same as those of the Highlander; and that the more minute shades of difference are to be ascribed to moral and political causes. The conclusion from this induction evidently is, that the Irish and the Highlanders are originally the same people. As to the question, whether the Irish emigrated from Scotland, or the Caledonians from

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Ireland, it appears to me, in point of utility, much the same as that of the Welchman, who endeavoured to ascertain, whether the Welch was the language of Adam and Eve in Paradise.

CHAP. V.

REMARKS ON SOME PARTS OF THE HISTORY OF IRELAND.

MR. HUME remarks that the conquered provinces of free countries are more oppressed than those of absolute monarchies. "Com"pare," says he, "the Pais conquis of France "with Ireland, and you will be convinced of "this truth; though this latter kingdom being "in a good measure peopled from England

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possesses so many rights and privileges as "should naturally make it challenge better "treatment than that of a conquered province. "Corsica is also an obvious instance to the

Those principles in human nature which account for this general truth are very obvious; and the observation so far as it regards Ireland will be fully confirmed by a careful survey of the history of that country,since its conquest by Henry. Its situation before this period though

* Hume's Essay on Politics and Science, p. 30.

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no doubt, rude and barbarous, was compatible with some share of domestic enjoyment. It possessed undisturbed its own governments, its laws and institutions; and these, though far from being the best, were better adapted to the manners and genius of the people to be governed than the most perfect political arrange

ments.

Imported forms of government seldom produce happy effects in the first instance, especially when these forms are imposed by the desolating sword of the invader. Then, the native imbibes and retains the most inveterate prejudices against every thing that comes from the stranger: his language, his manners, and his very garb, every circumstance that is associated with his country and his person, become the objects of cordial detestation. And though the hand of power may restrain this hatred, yet power alone cannot remove it, nor altogether counteract its effects; it will discover itself by turbulence and insurrection, and often by making the people more ferocious than they had been in the state of their original barbarity. Its influence also must be considered as deleterious on the manners and dispositions of the conquerors: power, which may be considered as absolute, exercised over those who are viewed by them as infinitely

their inferiors, and from whom, perhaps, they are receiving constant provocation, will gradually superinduce a cruelty of disposition, and a stupid insensibility to the happiness of their fellow creatures, which all the civilization and humanity of the country which they have left will not be able to prevent. The force of this antipathy can only be diminished by time, by the conciliating measures of a wise government, by benevolent and ameliorating exertion, by sharing the distinction and privileges of the state equally among all the subjects, and by a readiness to consult and even to flatter the national prejudices of the natives.

If the conquest of Ireland had been rendered the means of communicating that moderate degree of civilization and happiness which England then enjoyed, its propriety might have been maintained on the score of benevolence though, perhaps, not of justice. "But unfortu

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nately the state of Ireland rendered that island "so little inviting to the English, that only a "few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, "from time to time, to transport themselves "thither; and instead of reclaiming the na"tives from their uncultivated manners, they "were gradually assimilated to the ancient “inhabitants, and degenerated from the customs of their own nation. It was also found

"