Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/124

104 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 42. ' They know not so well who is their neighbour as whom they favour ; with him they will witness in right and wrong. ' They covet not their neighbours' goods, but com- mand all that is their neighbours' as their own. ' Thus they live and die, and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers. Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had, nei- ther church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to inhabit where there is no defence of law.' 1 The condition of the Pale was more miserable than that of the districts purely Irish. The garrison took from the farmers by force whatever they required for their support, paying for it in the brass shillings in which they themselves received their own wages. The soldiers robbed the people; the Government had before robbed the sol- diers ; and the captains of the different districts in turn robbed the Government by making false returns of the number of men under their command. They had intermarried with the Irish, or had Irish mis- tresses living in the forts with them, and thus for the most part they were in league with those whom they were maintained to repress ; so that choosing one master instead of many, and finding themselves obnox- ious to their own countrymen by remaining under a rule from which they derived no protection, the tenantry of The disorders of the Irishry, 1559 : Jm// MSS. Rolls Howe.