Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/554

 $34 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. ed the ,and Galway, where the same ovation attended the Deputy. There were grievances to be redressed, and crimes to be punished, ' plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, sacrileges, besides such spoil in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite ard in quantity immeasurable.' The citizens at Galway, ' if their report was to be believed, had lost more than four times the whole value of the country/ Sir Henry satis- fied them as he could, used the rope again freely for the hanging of rascals, and so in April came at last to Dublin, from which he sent over his reports with reflec- tions on the general condition of the country. He insisted, as when he was Deputy five years before he had urgently advised, that Conn aught and Munster must be made into presidencies. The experiment might have failed once, but it must be tried again at all costs. If England, for its own convenience, found it necessary to occupy Ireland, England was bound to make its Government a reality. It was bound to protect the poor from the oppression of the chiefs, who under an affectation of loyalty to the Crown, were now securing an immunity to tyrannize in their own counties. 1 ' Mun- ster was in towardness to be reformed,' said Sidney, but notwithstanding the display of good will, 'if James 1 Then arid always the difficulty with Ireland has been that the peasantry prefer ill government by their own people, to the most intel- ligent and most just administration of the Saxons. Yet it is interesting to find a confession even in an Irish i annalist, that the difference was felt and perceived. When Sir John Perrot left Munster, the Four Masters scornfully say, 'his de- parture was lamented by the poor, the widows, the feeble, and the un- warlike. '