But no question could be more idle.

History must do to both parties the justice which neither has ever done to the other, and must admit that both had fair pleas and cruel provocations.

Both had been placed, by a fate for which neither was answerable, in such a situation that, human nature being what it is, they could not but regard each other with enmity.

During three years the government which might have reconciled them had systematically employed its whole power for the purpose of inflaming their enmity to madness.

It was now impossible to establish in Ireland a just and beneficent government, a government which should know no distinction of race or of sect, a government which, while strictly respecting the rights guaranteed by law to the new landowners, should alleviate by a judicious liberality the misfortunes of the ancient gentry.