Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/568

548 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. esteemed among the common people, and taught such laws as were repugnant to her Majesty's.' 1 If the Irish would have submitted, if they would T* have relinquished, without a struggle, their habits, their language, their laws, and their creed, England would have bestowed upon them in return, her own better laws, her own better religion, and the orderly and just Government which they had been unable to provide for themselves. The poor would have been protected from plunder, the weaker chiefs from the swords of their stronger neighbours. There would have been no con- . fiscation, no oppression, no wrong* of any kind. The object of England was to extend to her wayward sister every blessing which she most valued for herself. She desired nothing but the true genuine good of the Irish people, and because they did not recognize her kindness, she thought herself justified in treating them like wild beasts. The triumphal progress of the Deputy, the levees at Cork and Galway, the policy of conciliation, had ended in vanity. To leave Ireland to be governed by the Irish was to give it over to anarchy, and the system had invariably failed whenever it was tried. The appointment of the presidents, and their hard and cruel rule, showed the chiefs that the fine speeches at Sidney's reception had been but an affectation to delude them into quiet while English authority was establishing itself; and the signs of an approaching rebellion were visible to the blindest eyes. Sir William Drury to the Council, March 24, 1577-8: MSS. Ireland.