‘Blessings on his sacred head, I do! Did he not teach us to grow potatoes and smoke tobacco? I’d forgive a man a good deal in consideration of such lasting benefits.’ ‘Please recollect he was one of the English who accompanied Lord Grey to the South of Ireland, and took part in the attack on a great castle there. All the inmates were slaughtered. A few women, some of them pregnant, were hanged. A servant of Saunders, an Irish gentleman, and a priest were hanged, also. The bodies, six hundred in all, were stripped and laid out upon the sands—“as gallant, goodly personages,” said Grey, “as were ever beheld.” Was not that murderous work?’ ‘It was indeed,’ said Wentworth sadly. ‘But why treasure up such deeds of blood done ages ago? It is not Christian. The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies.’ ‘But it is human nature. We Irishmen have long memories. Such things can never be forgotten or forgiven.’ ‘There I think you’re wrong. Besides, in the case you refer to the victims were chiefly foreigners, who had no business there, who had come merely for the sake of fighting. What was done in barbarous times would not be permitted now. Let us strive to be better friends. You Irishmen come to England and we welcome you at the bar, on the press, in trade, in the army or navy, or the public service. I will go further still. It is a shame that when a bridge is to be built over the Shannon you have to come to London. You ought to manage your own local affairs. But England is an empire, and high-spirited, intelligent Irishmen would rather take part in Imperial politics than shine in a local Parliament. Home Rule will not satisfy the natural aspirations of an Irishman of talent. I met an old Dutch naval captain at Flushing who complained to me one day bitterly of the hardship of his lot. When he was born Holland was a part of France; now Holland was independent, and he was a citizen of a little principality rather than of a great empire. It will be so with the Irishman of the future—or an Irishman in search of a career.’ ‘But, sir, is not a desire for Ireland’s nationality a reasonable one?’ ‘Undoubtedly; but Ireland never was a nation. It was always torn with dissension; with leaders and lords ready to kill each other, only kept from doing so by England. No one would rejoice to see Ireland a nation more than I, but that is a dream of which I despair.’ ‘But Home Rule will make Ireland a nation.’ ‘How can you say that, sir?’ said Wentworth indignantly. ‘It is in the Protestant north that the strength of Ireland lies; it is there you meet intelligence and industry and wealth; it is there you see what Ireland might become. In all other parts of Ireland, what do you see but wretchedness and poverty? There is a permanent line of separation which not even Home Rule can obliterate.’