Confiscation hit primarily the land-owning classes (a larger proportion, of course, of the total population in Ireland than in England); it was only its secondary effects that pressed hard on the great mass of the people. And wretched as was the condition of the tiller of the soil in the eighteenth century, may not his lot, and that of the smaller landowners actually have been worse, in some respects at least, under the constant feuds, the incessant raids which seem inseparable from the clan system? With colonisation came at least a more secure existence, the possibility of a higher standard of material comfort.
So in certain ways there has been a gain to the nation as a whole.
In the early part of the story of confiscation we have seen how frequently the colonist of one generation has in the next become the victim of a fresh confiscation. In this way the two races have to a certain extent mingled. And after the work of confiscation and colonisation was done there has, in spite of everything, been a certain amount of fusion, although on the whole it is the older element which has prevailed. The colonist has supplied a hardness, a sense of discipline, habits of sustained industry which were wanting to the Celtic character. He has gained a flexibility of mind and certain elements of sympathy and imagination in which the pure Teutonic race is singularly deficient. To confiscation and colonisation England owes a constant drain on her resources, a vulnerable point in her defences, a hostile sentiment with which in every crisis of her
