231.
SECTION 5.

IRELAND If the union of England and Wales has been a marriage--after a courtship of the primitive type; if the union with Scotland has been a successful partnership--following a long period of cut-throat competition; the position of Ireland has been that of a captive and a slave.

To her unwilling mind the English domination has always been a foreign one, and this fact makes more difference with her than whether her master has been cruel, as formerly, or kind, as of late.
[Sidenote: English rule] The saddest period in all Erin's sad life was that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when to the old antagonism of race was added a new hatred of creed and a new commercial competition.

The policy of Henry was "to reduce that realm to the knowledge of God and obedience of Us." The policy of Elizabeth was to pray that God might "call them to the knowledge of his truth and to a civil polity," and to assist the Almighty by the most fiendish means to accomplish these ends.

The government of the island was a crime, and yet for this crime some considerations must be urged in extenuation.