— 13 —
was abolished. All these oppressions kindled in the hearts of the Irish that hatred which,, becoming hereditary from generation to generation, evidenced itself in countless conspiracies, and to-day burns in the hearts of the Irish fiercer than ever. When England lost her North American colonies, it flared up anew in a revolt, which, however, was suppressed at the cost of some 30,000 lives. The pitiable situation of the Irish became still worse. Reduced to the condition of tenants on their own former property, they were dependent more than ever upon the greed of their English landlords. By 1840 their misery and poverty was so abject that thousands of tenants could not pay their land rent, whereupon they were driven from their holdings by soldiers sent from England for this purpose. At the same time crops failed and starvation ensued, carrying off thousands. It was now that the exodus of the masses started, which deprived Ireland of over 3,764,000 persons, within the forty years 1841 to 1880. The majority of these emigrants found an asylum in the United States, where they established new homes, but still remember their "Green Erin" in melancholy sorrow.
England, the Vampire of India.
India in the 16th and 17th centuries consisted of a large number of independent principalities and kingdoms, the rulers of which allowed the Portuguese, Dutch and French traders to lease real-estate in certain places along the coast and there to erect trading stations. As these traders gained enormous profits an English "East India Company" was organized in 1612 and by the government furnished with far reaching privileges. Not only did it hold within its domains the criminal jurisdiction, but also the entire political administration of the land. England could not have put the management of its interests into abler hands. For, in the leaders of this "East India Company" were concentrated the spirit of piracy, the hypocrisy, the crafty deceit, the audacity and brutality of the "great sea heroes." They succeeded, by intrigues and force, not only in driving away their Portugese, Dutch and French rivals but, by cunning interference with the quarrels of the Indian princes, by supporting and playing off one ruler against the others to gain so great an influence in India, that they could venture from their secret to an open policy of conquest. This policy found its most audacious and inscrupulous exponent in Robert Clive who, in 1744 had come to Madras and in a most ingenious way exploited all occasions to increase the
