described the history of her connection with Ireland from the beginning as a scandal and reproach to her, I must meet this assertion with a simple denial. No one who knows Ireland now can be satisfied with its present condition. There is an agitation for a separate Irish Parliament, which it was supposed that public sentiment in America generally approved. I think, for myself, that there are certain definite measures for Ireland's good which she could obtain more easily from the United Parliament than she could obtain them from her own. I wished to show that she had less cause than she supposed for the animosity which she entertained against England, ill as England had behaved to her; and I have said what I had to say here in the form of lectures, because it was the most likely way to attract attention. Father Burke goes on to suggest that England is a decaying empire, that her power is broken, her arm grown feeble, the days of Macaulay's 'New Zealander' not far off, that England is afraid of the growing strength of the Irish in the United States, the eight millions of them who have come from the old country, and the fourteen millions of Irish descent. It is scarcely becoming for two British subjects to be discussing in this country whether Great Britain is in a state of decadence. England is afraid, however, and deeply afraid. She is afraid of being even driven to use again those measures of coercion against Ireland, which have been the shame of her history. But Father Burke's figures, I confess, startled me. Of the forty-two millions of American citizens, twentytwo millions were either Irish born or of Irish descent. Was this possible? I referred to the census of 1870, and I was still more confounded. The entire number of immigrant foreigners, who were then in the United States, amounted to 5,556,566. Of these, under two millions were Irish. The entire number of children born of Irish parents was under two millions also. Add half a million for children of the second generation, and from these figures it follows, if Father Burke is correct, that in the two last years there must have come from Ireland no less than 6,000,000 persons, or more than the entire population of the island, and that in the same two years the Irish mothers must have produced not fewer than 11,500,000 infants. knew that their fertility was remarkable, but I was not prepared for such an astounding illustration of it.' I Still speculating on my motives, Father Burke inclines on the whole to give me credit for patriotism. He thinks I have come to speak for my own country, and he is good enough to praise me for doing so. I am grateful for the compliment, but I cannot accept it. I have come not to speak for my country, but for his. I believe that the present agitation there is likely to avert indefinitely the progress of Father Burke probably meant that there were 14 millions of Irish altogether in the United States. Even so, his estimate is wildly exaggerated; I assume that he was not speaking of the Anglo-Irish or Scotch-Irish, but of the Irish proper. Of these there were in America in 1870, of natives of Ireland, 1,855,779, of children of Irish parents born in America, 1,389,433. The children of mixed marriages are not properly Irish, nor are mixed marriages common among the Irish; but construing the phrase Irish descent widely, and allowing the same proportion to them as to other foreigners, there were in 1870 of children, one of whose parents was Irish, 385.723. Thus of natives of Ireland and of children in the first generation, there were in all 3,630,935. It is difficult to arrive at the number of Irish children of the second gene improvement, that the best chance for the Irish people is to stand by the English people and demand an alteration of the land laws. I wish to see them turn their energies from the speculative to the practical. But Father Burke considers me unfit to speak upon this subject, and for three reasons: First, because I despise the Irish people. I despise them, do I? Then why have I made Ireland my second home? Why am I here now? Am I finding my undertaking such a pleasant one? I say that for various reasons I have a peculiar and exceptional respect and esteem for the Irish people; I mean for the worthy part of them, the peasantry, and according to my lights I am endeavouring to serve them. I say, the peasantry. For Irish demagogues and political agitators, well, for them, yes, I confess I do feel contempt from the bottom of my soul. I rejoice that Father Burke has disclaimed all connection with them. Of all the curses which have afflicted Ireland, the demagogues have been the greatest. But I am unfit for another reason. I have been convicted, by a citizen of Brooklyn, of inserting words of my own in letters and documents of State. Ladies and gentlemen, I have not been convicted by the citizen of Brooklyn, but I have given the citizen of Brooklyn an opportunity of convicting me if I am guilty. He has not been pleased to avail himself of it. He calls my proposal, I know not why, falla cious. He enquires why I will not reply directly to his own allegations. I answer first, that I cannot, for I am on one side of the Atlantic and my books and papers are on the other. I answer secondly, that if I reply to him I must reply to fifty others. I answer thirdly, that I have found by experience that controversies between parties interested in such disputes lead to no conclusion. At this moment I am supposed to be calumniating the Irish Catholics. Two or three years ago I was in trouble in England on pre cisely opposite ground. I had dis covered a document which I conceived to relieve the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland of a charge of subserviency to Queen Elizabeth, which had long attached to them. I had discovered another, from which I published extracts, exposing an act of extreme cruelty perpetrated in the North of Ireland by one of Elizabeth's officers. Both these papers I had reason to know were extremely welcome to the Irish Catholic Prelates. They were no less unwelcome to Protestants. I was violently attacked, and I replied. The documents were looked into, up and down, but without producing conviction on either side. I, after the most careful consideration, was unable to withdraw what I had written. The Tory journals continued, and perhaps continue, to charge me with misrepresentation, and speak of me as a person whose good faith is not to be depended on. I determined that from that time ration born in the United States. They must be the descendants of those who have been sufficiently long here to allow their children to be born, to grow to maturity and become parents. None of the immigrants arriving since 1850 can be included in this class; the arrival of the native Irish was inconsiderable before 1847, and in 1850 the entire number of Irish who had arrived in the United States amounted only to 988,945. The mortality among the Irish, whether as children or adults, is in advance of any other part of the population. The most extravagant conjecture will not venture, therefore, to add more than 600,000 for the number of Irish children whose parents were born in this country. Those who have best means of judging, estimate the entire Irish race now in America at between four and five millions. described the history of her connection with Ireland from the beginning as a scandal and reproach to her, I must meet this assertion with a simple denial. No one who knows Ireland now can be satisfied with its present condition. There is an agitation for a separate Irish Parliament, which it was supposed that public sentiment in America generally approved. I think, for myself, that there are certain definite measures for Ireland's good which she could obtain more easily from the United Parliament than she could obtain I wished to them from her own. show that she had less cause than she supposed for the animosity which she entertained against England, ill as England had behaved to her; and I have said what I had to say here in the form of lectures, because it was the most likely way to attract attention. Father Burke goes on to suggest that England is a decaying empire, that her power is broken, her arm grown feeble, the days of Macaulay's 'New Zealander' not far off, that England is afraid of the growing strength of the Irish in the United States, the eight millions of them who have come from the old country, and the fourteen millions of Irish descent. It is scarcely becoming for two British subjects to be discussing in this country whether Great Britain is in a state of decadence. England is afraid, however, and deeply afraid. She is afraid of being even driven to use again those measures of coercion against Ireland, which have been Add half a million for children of the second generation, and from these figures it follows, if Father Burke is correct, that in the two last years there must have come from Ireland no less than 6,000,000 persons, or more than the entire population of the island, and that in the same two years the Irish mothers must have produced not fewer than 11,500,000 infants. knew that their fertility was remarkable, but I was not prepared for such an astounding illustration of it.' Still speculating on my motives, Father Burke inclines on the whole to give me credit for patriotism. He thinks I have come to speak for my own country, and he is good enough to praise me for doing so. I am grateful for the compliment, but I cannot accept it. I have come not to speak for my country, I believe that the but for his. present agitation there is likely to avert indefinitely the progress of Father Burke probably meant that there were 14 millions of Irish altogether in the United States. Even so, his estimate is wildly exaggerated; I assume that he was not speaking of the Anglo-Irish or Scotch-Irish, but of the Irish proper. Of these there were in America in 1870, of natives of Ireland, 1,855,779, of children of Irish parents born in America, 1,389,433. The children of mixed marriages are not properly Irish, nor are mixed marriages common among the Irish; but construing the phrase Irish descent widely, and allowing the same proportion to them as to other foreigners, there were in 1870 of children, one of whose parents was Irish, 385,723. Thus of natives of Ireland and of children in the first generation, there were in all 3,630,935. It is difficult to arrive at the number of Irish children of the second gene I improvement, that the best chance for the Irish people is to stand by the English people and demand an alteration of the land laws. I wish to see them turn their energies from the speculative to the practical. But Father Burke considers me unfit to speak upon this subject, and for three reasons: First, because I despise the Irish people. I despise them, do I? Then why have I made Ireland my second home? Why am I here now? Am I finding my undertaking such a pleasant one? I say that for various reasons I have a peculiar and exceptional respect and esteem for the Irish people; I mean for the worthy part of them, the peasantry, and according to my lights I am endeavouring to serve them. I say, the peasantry. For Irish demagogues and political agitators, well, for them, yes, I confess I do feel contempt from the bottom of my soul. I rejoice that Father Burke has disclaimed all connection with them. Of all the curses which have afflicted Ireland, the demagogues have been the greatest. But I am unfit for another reason. have been convicted, by a citizen of Brooklyn, of inserting words of my own in letters and documents of State. Ladies and gentlemen, I have not been convicted by the citizen of Brooklyn, but I have given the citizen of Brooklyn an opportunity of convicting me if I am guilty. He has not been pleased to avail himself of it. He calls my proposal, I know not why, falla cious. He enquires why I will not reply directly to his own allegations. I answer first, that I cannot, for I am on one side of the Atlantic and my books and papers are on the other. I answer secondly, that if I reply to him I must reply to fifty others. I answer thirdly, that I have found by experience that controversies between parties interested in such disputes lead to no conclusion. At this moment I am supposed to be calumniating the Irish Catholics. Two or three years ago I was in trouble in England on pre cisely opposite ground. I had dis covered a document which I conceived to relieve the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland of a charge of subserviency to Queen Elizabeth, which had long attached to them. I had discovered another, from which I published extracts, exposing an act of extreme cruelty perpetrated in the North of Ireland by one of Elizabeth's officers. Both these papers I had reason to know were extremely welcome to the Irish Catholic Prelates. They were no less unwelcome to Protestants. I was violently attacked, and I replied. The documents were looked into, up and down, but without producing conviction on either side. I, after the most careful consideration, was unable to withdraw what I had written. The Tory journals continued, and perhaps continue, to charge me with misrepresentation, and speak of me as a person whose good faith is not to be depended on. I determined that from that time ration born in the United States. They must be the descendants of those who have been sufficiently long here to allow their children to be born, to grow to maturity and become parents. None of the immigrants arriving since 1850 can be included in this class; the arrival of the native Irish was inconsiderable before 1847, and in 1850 the entire number of Irish who had arrived in the United States amounted only to 988,945. The mortality among the Irish, whether as children or adults, is in advance of any other part of the population. The most extravagant conjecture will not venture, therefore, to add more than 600,000 for the number of Irish children whose parents were born in this country. Those who have best means of judging, estimate the entire Irish race now in America at between four and five millions. I would never place myself in such a position again. 'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature falls Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. I hope I am not, strictly speak ing, the baser nature. But it has been my fortune ever since I began to write on these subjects to feel the pricks of the opposing lances, and I shall continue to feel them as long as I tell the truth. My History of England has been composed from, perhaps, two hundred thousand documents, nine-tenths of them in difficult MS., and in half-a-dozen languages. I have been unable to trust printed copies, for the MSS. often tell stories which the printed versions leave concealed. I have been unable to trust copyists; I have read everything myself. I have made my own extracts from papers which I might never see a secondt me. I have had to condense pages into single sentences, to translate, and to analyse; and have had afterwards to depend entirely on my own transcripts. Under such conditions it is impossible for me to affirm that no reference has been misplaced, and no inverted commas fallen to the wrong words. I have done my best to be exact, and no writer can undertake more. In passing from my notes to my written composition, from my composition to print, from one edition to another, the utmost care will not prevent mistakes. It often happens that half a letter is in one collection and half in another. There will be two letters from the same person, and the same place, on the same subject and on the same day. One may be among the State Papers, another in the British Museum. will not say that passages from two such letters may not at times appear in my text as if they were one. A critic looks at the reference, finds part of what I have said and not the other, and jumps to the conclu I sion that I have invented it. Of course I don't complain of faults of this kind being pointed out. I am obliged to anyone who will take the trouble. I do complain, that when I am doing my utmost to tell the truth I should be charged so hastily with fraud. I referred and I refer all such accusers to a competent tribunal of impartial persons, accustomed to deal with historical documents, who understand the conditions under which a work like mine can be composed, and will know, when a passage seems to be unsupported, where to look for the evidence, and where to find it. More than this I will never condescend to say on the subject of my historical veracity. It is my last word. But I will not allow that I have been convicted, as Father Burke calls it, till I have been properly tried. Once more, Father Burke says I am unfit to speak of Ireland, because I hate the Catholic Church. I show my hatred, it appears, by holding the Church answerable for the cruelties of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, and for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in France. Here is what the Father says on the first of these matters: Alva fought in the Netherlands against an uprising against the authority of the State. If the rebels happened to be Protestants, there is no reason to father their blood upon the Catholics.' I beg you to attend to this passage. This is the way in which modern Catholic history is composed; and you may see from it what kind of lessons children will be taught in the national schools if Catholics have the control of the text books. Father Burke himself, perhaps, only repeats what he has been taught. I suppose he never heard of the Edicts of Charles the Fifth. By those Edicts, which were issued at the opening of the |