But England
did not choose to take that politic and Christian course. She found it
much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots,
to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their
poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the
brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to
felicitate herself on the reduction that had taken place in the Irish
population. That--from her point of view--was the glorious part of the
whole affair. The Irish were "gone with a vengeance!"--not all of them,
but a goodly proportion, and others were going off every day. Emigrant
ships clustered in the chief ports, and many sought their living
freights in those capacious harbours along the Atlantic coast which
nature seemed to have shaped for the accommodation of a great commerce,
but where the visit of any craft larger than a fishing smack was a rare
event. The flaming placards of the various shipping-lines were posted in
every town in Ireland,--on the chapel-gates, and the shutters of closed
shops, and the doors of tenantless houses; and there appeared to be in
progress a regular breaking up of the Irish nation. This, to the English
mind, was positively delightful.
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