I do not recall these facts in order to show that Elizabethan policy was
a riot of blackguardism. That is obvious, and it is irrelevant. I
mention them in order to show that the blackguardism under review was an
unrelieved failure. At one time, indeed, it seemed to have succeeded.
"Ireland, brayed as in a mortar, to use Sir John Davies' phrase," writes
M. Paul-Dubois, "at last submitted. In the last years of the century
half the population had perished. Elizabeth reigned over corpses and
ashes. _Hibernia Pacata_--Ireland is 'pacified.'"
* * * * *
The blunder discloses itself at a glance. Only half the population had
perished; there were still alive, according to the most probable
estimate, quite two hundred thousand Irishmen. The next generation helps
to illustrate not only the indestructibility of Ireland, but her all but
miraculous power of recuperation. So abundant are the resources of his
own vitality that, as Dr Moritz Bonn declares, an Irish peasant can live
where a continental goat would starve.
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