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LECTURE I.

THE NORMAN INVASION.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is a strange fact that the old battle that has been raging for seven hundred years, should be renewed again so far away from the old land. The question on which I am come to speak to you this evening has been argued at many a council board, debated in many a Parliament, disputed on many a wellfought field, and is not yet decided-the question between England and Ireland. Amongst the visitors to America, who came over this year, there was one gentleman, distinguished in Europe for his style of writing and for his historical knowledge, the author of several works which have created a profound sensation, at least for their originality. Mr. Froude has frankly stated that he came over to this country to deal with England and with the Irish question, viewing it from an English standpoint; that like a true man he came to America to make the best case that he could for his own country; that he came to state that case to an American public as

to a grand jury, and to demand a verdict from them, the most extraordinary that was ever yet demanded from any people, namely, the declaration that England was right in the manner in which she has treated my native land for seven hundred years.' It seems, according to this learned gentleman, that we Irish have been badly treated-so much he confesses; but he puts in as a plea that we only got what we deserved. It is true, he says, that we have governed them badly; the reason is, because it was impossible to govern them rightly. It is true that we have robbed them; the reason is, because it was a pity to leave them their own, they made such a bad use of it. It is true we have persecuted them; the reason is, persecution was a fashion of the time, and the order of the day. On these pleas there is not a criminal in prison to-day in the United States that should not instantly get his freedom by acknowledging his crime and pleading some extenuating circumstance. Our ideas about Ireland have been all wrong, it seems. Seven hundred years ago the exigencies of the time demanded the foundation of a strong British Empire; in order to do this, Ireland had to be conquered, and Ireland was conquered. Since that time the one ruling idea in the English mind has been to do all the good that they could for the Irish. Their legislation and their action has not always been tender, but it has been always beneficent. They sometimes were severe, but they were severe to us for our own good; and the difficulty of England has been that the Irish, during these long hundreds

of years, never understood their own interests, or knew what was for their own advantage. Now, the American mind is enlightened, and henceforth no Irishman must complain of the past, in this new light in which Mr. Froude puts it before us. Now, the amiable gentleman tells us that what has been our fate in the past, he greatly fears we must reconcile ourselves to in the future. He comes to tells us his version of the history of Ireland, and he also comes to solve Ireland's difficulty, and to lead us out of all the miseries that have been our lot for hundreds of years. When he came many persons questioned what was the motive or the reason of his coming? I have heard people speaking all around me, and assigning to the learned gentleman this motive or that. Some people said he was an emissary of the English Government; that they sent him here because they were beginning to be afraid of the rising power of Ireland in this great nation; that they saw here eight millions of Irishmen by birth, and perhaps fourteen millions by descent; and that they knew enough of the Irish to realize that the Almighty God blessed them always with an extraordinary power, not only to preserve themselves, but to spread themselves, until, in a few years, not fourteen, but fifty millions of descendants of Irish blood and of Irish race will be in this land. According to those who thus surmise, England wants to check the sympathy of the American people for their Irish fellow-citizens, and it was considered that the best way to effect this was to send a learned man with

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