Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/310

After Limerick those who professed the religion of their forefathers, mainly because this religion seemed to them fraught with all sorts of political dangers and to be a source of treason and disaffection. As for the Irish Protestants, England felt no particular jealousy towards them, for they were as zealous in their support of the new dynasty and the new order of things as any Englishman in England. And so the task which English statesmen professedly set themselves after the revolution was to foster the Protestant interest in Ireland in all those directions in which it did not interfere with the wealth and power of England. This task, however, was never really set about in earnest, and it was not long before the interests of the Irish Protestants were lost sight of almost as completely as those of the Irish Catholics had already been, and Ireland was administered solely in the interests of England herself.

Now, these views of contemporary Englishmen give us a simple enough explanation of the peculiar policy adopted by England towards Ireland during this period. The general theoretical reasons which led England to place restrictions not only on the trade of Ireland, but also on that of Scotland and the American colonies were reinforced by special political and religious reasons 298