Note 72 — SOME ARGUMENTS CONSIDERED.[71]

The late J.E. Cairnes, after describing the clearances after the famine, goes on to say, "I own I cannot wonder that a thirst for revenge should spring from such calamities; that hatred, even undying hatred, for what they could not but regard as the cause and symbol of their misfortunes—English rule in Ireland—should possess the sufferers.... The disaffection now so widely diffused throughout Ireland may possibly in some degree be fed from historical traditions, and have its remote origin in the confiscations of the seventeenth century; but all that gives it energy, all that renders it dangerous, may, I believe, be traced to exasperation produced by recent transactions, and more especially to the bitter memories left by that most flagrant abuse of the rights of property and most scandalous disregard of the claims of humanity—the wholesale clearances of the period following the famine."—Political Essays, p. 198.