ago to have been employed, and which I have had occasion repeatedly to recommend in these pages: I mean moral and religious instruction. This instruction must be conveyed through the medium of that language which is understood, and by the ordinary mode of early education, as well as from the pulpit. These are the means of moral improvement, which, if prudently and extensively employed, will, in the course of a very few years, accomplish in the neighbouring isle the most important reformation.

CHAP. VIII.

ON THE PROGRESS OF ENGLISH LAW AND GO VERNMENT IN IRELAND.

THE administration of justice in any country has too much influence on the morals, the comfort, and safety of its inhabitants not to merit the most particular investigation. Nor is it enough to examine what institutions have been established, what forms of jurisprudence have been sanctioned, what code of laws has been enacted; we should inquire how these institutions are respected, and how these laws are enforced.

The few observations which it is in my power to offer on the subject of this chapter I shall arrange under the following particulars. First, I shall inquire how far the law and political institutions of England were established in the pale; secondly, make some remarks on the nature and tendency of the Brehon, or Irish laws; and thirdly, on the abolition of these laws, and the universal progress and establishment of those of

England.

I. It is not very probable that those adventurers who first settled in Ireland, had any correct ideas

"land as they pleased, they acted with the less re"serve. They were generally tempted to under"take the conduct of a disordered state, for the "sake of private emolument; and their object

was pursued without delicacy or integrity, "sometimes with inhuman violence."* In the annals of Irish history previous.to the reign of Elizabeth, few English vicegerents are mentioned, whose measures were conciliating, whose conduct was upright, and whose administration successful. The representations of the con"duct of the Irish people sent to England were

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generally false and interested, to magnify the " zeal of the great lords, to procurc remittances "for a chief governor, or to conceal the offen❝ces and irregularities of either. The English vicegerents, even of the very best dispositions, "were kept in ignorance during their residence, "and shut up in the seat of government from

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any knowledge of the native Irish, or any ge"neral intercourse even with the most peaceable among them."+

These circumstances combined,produced that shocking depravation of manners, that unbridled licentiousness, which continued and increased till the reign of Henry the seventh, which enabled the natives to overrun with impunity the

* Leland's History of Ireland.

Ibid?

territories of the pale, and again to take possession of that land, which had been unjustly wrested from their fathers. The English colonists were now, for the most part, perfectly assimilated in customs, deportment, dress and superstitions, to that people whom they had originally despised.

During this period law could have little force with men who scarcely acknowledged its authority, and who certainly had never been in circumstances where they could feel its advantage. Yet, it is probable, that assemblies similar to parliaments were appointed ever since the conquest of Ireland; and it is certain, that the first printed statutes of the Irish legislature, appeared in the third year of Edward the second.* The enactments of this supreme court were often made subservient to the private purposes of the governor the meeting itself was inconveniently frequent; and hence, to counteract these evils, the people unanimously agreed to the famous statute of Poyning. Though the English law had always been established in the pale, the manners of its inhabitants frequently made its observance impossible; many conform--· ed to the Brehon institutions, assumed the name and appearance of the natives, since their robbe

Leland's History of Ireland,

ries and crimes might be expiated by an inconsiderable fine. When every vassal felt that his safety entirely depended on the military prowess of the baron to whose interests he had attached himself; and the chieftain, that his security proceeded from the number and consequence of his followers; the ordinary course of justice must have been obstructed, and its execution rendered altogether impracticable.

It was to furnish a remedy for these evils, and to prevent the total extinction of the English race, that the parliament of Kilkenny made several laws, certainly severe towards the Irish, but, perhaps, necessary to the very existence of the colony. "Still the power of the great lords "was superiour to the laws, who not only despised, but openly resisted the authority of

government; and when disobliged by the "least neglect, or tempted by any prospect of "advantage, continued to assume the part of in"dependent chieftains.'

It was not till the reign of Henry the seventh that the vigorous administration of the governor enabled him to enforce the obedience of the subject, and not till that of his successor that the territories of the pale were extended. Under this latter reign, all the old English, and many of the Irish, were partly persuaded, and partly forced to submit to the laws of England.. Ex