If ever the sins of the fathers have been visited on the children, it has happened in the case of England’s connection with Ireland. The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. If we need a proof of the strength of history as a motive power, we cannot do better than go to Ireland. Here is a brave, a genial, a chivalrous race, shrewd and able in the affairs of life, and yet the mention of injustice done to their forefathers produces to this day such a feeling of indignation and resentment, as blinds them to the fact that the descendants of those whose memory they detest are endeavouring, almost to the opposite extreme, to remove all tokens of former injustice. The history of Ireland, in its relations with England, repeats many familiar truths; it proves that national sins no more go unpunished, than personal; it shows that rebellion without organisation is useless; and it tells most distinctly that reasonable demands have often been refused from want of judgment in the time and manner of urging them. It proves, also, most clearly, yet another point, for which no additional proof is required--that the passions of a people are the very best instrument with which unscrupulous men can work to obtain their own private ends; and that, by stirring these up, they can so blind men to the real goal which it is intended to reach, as actually to make them in time believe their own--possibly legitimate--purpose to be identical with that of their leaders, which, if presented to them in cold blood, would have made them shudder. He who doubts this needs only to study the class of men called the “United Irishmen,” as they were when first organized, and as they became under the manipulation of cunning leaders, and in the face of an imprudent, unreasoning opposition. The Government of England would have yielded much to the quiet reformers, which they were bound to refuse to rebels; and it was this knowledge that made the arch plotters fan discontent into disturbance as quickly as possible, lest, with the satisfaction of just demands and the removal of admitted grievances, the discontent should disappear, and their own vocation with it. The story of the rebellion in Ireland in 1798 is a sorry one; but it has its place in this history because, at some of the more important engagements between the troops and the rebels, such as those known as the battles of Ross, [Sidenote: Now A Battery, A Brigade; B Battery, A Brigade, and C Battery, A Brigade.] Wexford, and Vinegar Hill, that portion of the Regiment which had so recently been created--the Royal Horse Artillery--was present. Two guns of A, B, and C Troops respectively were present on these occasions. With the exception of these, and some Battalion gun detachments, the Artillerymen engaged during the rebellion in Ireland belonged to the national Corps--the old Irish Artillery--whose loyalty shone undimmed during that trying time.