"The severity of her government [says Macpherson]
contributed more to deprive her of the continental dominions of the family
of the Plantagenet than the arms of France."--See his _History_, vol.
i.
[2] "By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691[says
Burke], the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure, too, of the
first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English
interested was settled with as solid a stability as anything in human
affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of
oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the
effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the
victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke."
Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us
for "invaluable blessings," etc.
[3] The drivelling correspondence between James I and his "dog Steenie"
(the Duke of Buckingham), which we find among the Hardwicke Papers,
sufficiently shows, if we wanted any such illustration, into what doting,
idiotic brains the plan at arbitrary power may enter.
[4] Tacitus has expressed his opinion, in a passage very frequently
quoted, that such a distribution of power as the theory of the British
constitution exhibits is merely a subject of bright speculation, "a system
more easily praised than practised, and which, even could it happen to
exist, would certainly not prove permanent;" and, in truth, a review of
England's annals would dispose us to agree with the great historian's
remark.
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