The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-24 00:00:00

HELL OR CONNAUGHT.

We were under the delusion that Oliver Crom-
well was no more. But history is a mere news-
monger. Two hundred and ten years after his
recorded decease, Cromwell rises from the grave
and writes, to the Times. An anonymous letter
appeared from him in that journal last Wednesday.
Cromwell is indignant that Drogheda, Wexford,
and other exploits of his Ironsides should have
so scantily fulfilled their mission. He urges, in
phrase less involved, and with a fainter smack of
religion, than he used in the seventeenth century,
a renewal of such Christian methods of conciliating
an estranged people, as were practised in Ireland
under his own eye. It is true, that, being more
outspoken in terms than of old, the Protector has
the wisdom not to sign his name. That grim cog-
nomen, which has made the " curse of Cromwell'
a speaking reality in the sister island, would have
been a little strong, even for the Times. Accord-
ingly, he adopts a none de plume, and signs him-
self "Aliquis."
But the spirit is the same. There breathes in
every line of the letter of 4. Aliquis" the old,
fierce, Cromwellian temper; the haughty assump-
tion of the ascendancy of race in a nominally
united Empire. Give " Aliquis " (would he had
written himself " Outis") his swing, and he would
bring back to-morrow the essence of English rule
in Ireland two centuries ago. We should have
every social injustice, every overt atrocity, under
as specious names, too, as those which the history
of Ireland presents, from the landing of the Eng-
lish Commonwealth troopers, to the stamping out
the embers of the Irish Rebellion.

As we trust " Aliquis" will never thus have his
swing, we, at least, will secure to him his say.
He upbraids the Times for its over-mercifulness.
It is too soft-hearted, and therefore reticent. Far
from being the sanguinary organ which O'Connell
described it, it is, like Macbeth, in the opinion
of his truculent partner, too full of the milk of
human kindness :
" Why," says this somebody or other, "do you
stop short in your treatment of Ireland ? Why
do you hesitate to tell the truth? The truth is
this—we must revert to the old " plantation" days;
we must gradually replace a people who hate us,
and won't understand us, by a race which appre
ciates us and likes us. Or, as this is imme-
diately impossible, we ought to counteract the
former by spreading all over an impracticable,
almost lunatic, community, such little colonies as
we could of sane men."
The little colonies of sane men are to constitute
the first step. because immediately possible. Partry
evictions, Achilli missions, local Orange lodges;
bright spots dotted up and down the country,
where, from the centre of some favoured oasis of
in tellectual and moral culture, the roofs shall
be taken off the homely homes of malignant and
recusant cotters around, who are insensible,
through any other means, to the light of day. A
salutary process in January weather, analogous
to the treatment of such other " lunatics " as, in
the days when good King George was King, were
drenched with cold water to bring them to their
senses. A process that symbolises, in the' phy-
sical order, the train of other oppressions and
wrongs, social, educational, financial, spiritual,
thickly recorded on every page of Irish history.
These pioneers to the great march of progress
in Anglicised Ireland would be followed by the
advance of the main army. Nor is " Aliquis "
at any loaa for Ilia recruits. lie describes theta