Travels in Ireland in the Year 1822 Author:Thomas Reid Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FATAL CALM. 65 them under the fairest promises, which were generally fulfilled, to join themselves to his banners, and even take the lead in the most hazardou... more »s engagements, —a zeal which he turned to his credit with the queen; to whom he boasted with inhuman exultation, that he had thus made her enemies the means of self-destruction. A calm ensued. It was the tranquillity of death. The victorious deputy sat down in the midst of blood, to enjoy a peace purchased with the loss of half the population. In these circumstances James I. came to the throne. chapter{Section 4'66 CHAPTER III. STATE OF IRELAND, FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. The principle on which English dominion was originally established in Ireland, must, from its very nature, have repressed the energies of the people, and prevented them from benefiting of the vast advantages which the country presented. Henry II. brought with him pretensions which, wisely directed, would have rendered his reign propitious, and the annexation of the Irish to his English subjects permanently prosperous to both nations; but his political necessities compelled him to deprive them of the happy consequences of union and equal rights, by throwing the one into the hands of needy adventurers, whose interest it was to isolate their acquisitions, nnd form a dangerous medium of selfish independence between both. The successors of Henry weakly followed his example. Sir John Davies gives a pithy view of this pernicious principle. " Our great lords could not endure that any kings should reign in Ireland but themselves; nay, they could hardly endure that the crown of England itself should have any jurisdiction or power over them. For many of these lords, to whom our kings had granted these petty kingdoms, did, by virtue and colour of t...« less