He worshipped God after a pure and rational fashion: the Irish were sunk in idolatry and superstition.
He knew that great numbers of Irish had repeatedly fled before a small English force, and that the whole Irish population had been held down by a small English colony; and he very complacently inferred that he was naturally a being of a higher order than the Irishman: for it is thus that a dominant race always explains its ascendency and excuses its tyranny.

That in vivacity, humour, and eloquence, the Irish stand high among the nations of the world is now universally acknowledged.

That, when well disciplined, they are excellent soldiers has been proved on a hundred fields of battle.

Yet it is certain that, a century and a half ago, they were generally despised in our island as both a stupid and a cowardly people.

And these were the men who were to hold England down by main force while her civil and ecclesiastical constitution was destroyed.