When the welfare of a nation is at stake, it will not do to talk of the sacred rights of property. Justice must be done to the land-owners; full compensation must be made for their disturbance. But property in land is of a peculiar nature. It is only the product of labor which really has an unchallenged owner. The crops which a man's industry has raised on the soil, a table which his skill has fashioned from the wood, a brick that he has dug from the earth and moulded and burned, are all his unrestricted property. But aş no man made the surface of the earth, so no one can claim to own it.

The discoverer of an island cannot banish all after-comers. Crusoe was only "monarch of all he surveyed," because "his right there was none to dispute." But to the ground on which his hut was built, and on which his crops were growing, and his goats pasturing, his claim was good. A man's house may be his castle; but his land is not his kingdom. Had the English colonists simply taken the waste or unoccupied land of Ireland, or had they given fair compensation to those whose flocks had grazed on the better pasture which they needed, their title would have been lasting. But the grant was made to the proprietors for service to the English people. It will be no injustice, though some inconvenience, to the owners, if the English people now pay them in some other equivalent. The chief inconvenience is worthy à short consideration. Why are not £100,000 in consols as good as the same in land? Because the land can be entailed. It can be put beyond the chance of loss to the family. Everything else can be spent. So the old families cling to the land as the surest means of continuing the family name and station. As long as they monopolize the land, they are sure of their place. But let them lose this, and they are open to the competition of the whole kingdom. They cannot now keep their position at the head, except by real merit. To this they are afraid to trust. One after another, their families will be headed by weak or wasteful men, and so, one by one, they will disappear. They know the fate of the French nobility. When they lost their land, they lost their power. But others know the result to France of exchanging a few tens of thousands of noble proprietors and landed gentry for five million peasant owners. The steady prosperity of France, her freedom from commercial panics, her recovery from a disastrous war, her ability to adhere to a Conserva

tive Republican Government, have shown what it is to have a people rooted to the soil. The Irish peasant of to-day is better off than the French peasant of last century. But English statesmen would feel themselves fully successful, could they start the Irish toward the point of the French to-day.

A really noble aristocracy is a good thing for Ireland. But if the means which insure its elevation also insure the continued depression of all else in the country, let the aristocracy take its unaided chance in the struggle for existence. A thousand honest and capable men must not be debarred from advancement, to prevent one noble fool from squandering his ancestral fortune.

It seems scarcely appropriate to omit all mention of the Land League in speaking of Ireland. But it really deserves little attenIts evil effects must

tion. Its good work was long ago done. soon cease. When it protected from eviction those whom the sailure of crops rendered unable to pay their rent, it did a benevolent work. When it declares that a man shall not pay his stipulated rent, though he is amply able, it forfeits our esteem. But when to social ostracism it adds secret harm and violence, it deserves our strongest censure.

The Land League in some respects fell little short of meriting our admiration. Had the members decided that it was hopeless to trust longer to English laws to protect them, and that till these were improved they would follow juster ones of their own, had they determined upon these and quietly and peaceably lived up to them, and had the social punishments they inflicted been without violence, -they would have presented a grand spectacle of patient adherence to supposed duty, which would have won the sympathy of many who believed their action unnecessary or wrong. In their first proceedings they seemed to follow such a course. But the recent results of the agitation have shown a different motive. Agrarian outrages, not including non-payment of rent, have increased with the frequency of Land League meetings. They declare that they will pursue peaceable methods as long as these are most advantageous. When they violate the laws, they do not do it openly and accept the consequences. Their ways are dark and hidden. Finally, when a party comes into power which is pledged to reform the land laws, when the Prime Minister is one whose known views are nearly similar to their own,-their leaders boast of having spent

seven weeks in obstructing legislation which they knew they could not prevent, and which they also knew would have to precede the remedial measures. The Home Rulers in Parliament deserve little sympathy. Their ends are selfish. They direct the Land League for the benefit of Home Rule. They do not want to see order restored. Having excited the outrages of the League, of course they are anxious to protect the offenders. As long as Ireland is in a turmoil, they are kept on the surface. They are afraid to try to hold their own in the quiet.

The course of the Prime Minister offers a remarkable contrast. His treatment of the Irish difficulties is well illustrating his nobleness of nature. Ireland has suffered abuses; she is saddled with customs which wear out her strength. These he would remove, and open a road to future happiness and prosperity. But the Irish people will not wait; they are disorderly and violent. So he pauses in his remedial measures to preserve the authority of the law. The Irish leaders refuse to allow the passage of the necessary acts. So he pauses a moment longer to remove their power of obstruction. But his main purpose is not stayed or altered. He will labor as hard to secure justice for the Irish people as if they had given him no extra trouble. Not improbably they know this, and take deliberate advantage of it. The leaders of Ireland are far from being great statesmen, and they suffer when compared with England's greatest.

By the time this is in print, we will probably know what is planned for the reform of the Irish land laws. That it will embody wisdom and justice, Gladstone and his Cabinet are ample guarantees. But if this sketch has been fairly drawn, what is just toward the past and wise for the future will little please a powerful party in England. Before the Liberal statesman can count another victory over time-worn customs, there will be a fierce battle. Well will it be for the weaker party if it accepts the inevitable before it sustains the heaviest shock. Meanwhile, Americans will look on with deep interest, and will give all encouragement to those who are maintaining the advance. But they cannot help wondering why the old country works out so laboriously the principles which sprung spontaneously among her children on this side of the Atlantic.

THOMAS K. BROWN.

T

WILLIAM BEACH LAWRENCE.*

'HE duty that I perform to-night is truly a sad pleasure. It is, indeed, a great privilege to be allowed to lay a tribute upon the grave of a departed friend, but, at the same time, it is a privilege that we would always be happier were we not called upon to embrace. William Beach Lawrence, the honorary Vice-President of this Society for the State of Rhode Island, died in New York, at the Albemarle Hotel, on Saturday, March 26, 1881, in the eighty-first year of his age. My acquaintance with Mr. Lawrence began in the summer of 1868, and, for the remaining thirteen years of his life, our relations were not only friendly, but intimate. This may seem strange, considering the disparity of our years,he being nearly half a century my senior, but the great theme that for so long occupied his mind and pen,-the Law of Nations,was one that had early attracted my attention, and thus our similar tastes bridged over the gulf of years. Living far apart, in different States, our intercourse, except by letter, was necessarily limited; but I recall with great pleasure the occasions when I enjoyed the hospitality of his beautiful home at Ochre Point, and it is with equal satisfaction that I look back to when he was my guest here. Notwithstanding his engrossing labor upon his last great work, he was a no mean correspondent, and I find in my portfolio nearly fifty letters, closely written in his minute and characteristic hand. I need not say that I have felt flattered by his valued friendship; but in drawing up this memoir I have endeavored neither to paint the lily nor to gild refined gold, but merely to give a correct delineation of his life and labors.

William Beach Lawrence was born in the city of New York, on the twenty-third of October, 1800. The Lawrence lineage is one of the proudest in the land. They claim descent from Sir Robert Laurens of Ashton Hall, Lancaster, England, who accompanied Richard Cœur de Lion in his famous expedition to Palestine, and who signalized himself in the memorable siege of St. Jean d'Acre in 1191, by being the first to plant the banner of the cross on the battlements of that town, for which service

A paper read before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, May 5, 1881.

he received, on the field from King Richard, the honors of knighthood. After this, the family became eminent in England, and a writer says: "The Lawrences were allied to all that was great and illustrious; cousins to the ambitious Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; to the Earl of Warwick; to Lord Guilford Dudley, who expiated on the scaffold the short-lived royalty of Lady Jane Gray; to the brilliant Leicester, who set two queens at variance, and to Sir Philip Sidney, who refused a throne." Whether this descent is verified, has been disputed; but certain it is that the three brothers, John, William and Thomas, who emigrated from Great St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, to this country, in the first half of the seventeenth century, bore the same coat-of-arms as those granted to Sir Robert of Ashton Hall. John and William Lawrence came over with John Winthrop, Jr., Governor of Connecticut, in the ship "Planter," which landed at Plymouth in 1635, while Thomas, the youngest brother, from whom the subject of our notice was descended, is supposed, from his name not appearing in the list of passengers of the "Planter," to have come out subsequently and joined his brothers. It is also claimed that these three brothers were own cousins to the famous Henry Lawrence, Lord President of the Protector's Council, who was associated with Lords Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, Sir Arthur Hasselrig, Sir Richard Saltonstall, George Fenwick and Henry Darley, in obtaining the large grant of land on the Connecticut River, and who sent John Winthrop, Jr., out to be Governor over the same, intending to follow him to this country, but the prohibition to Cromwell and others from emigrating to America, defeated their intention. This relationship, although lacking documentary proof, is very probable, and would account for the emigration of John and William by the same vessel as Governor Winthrop, at the early ages of seventeen and twelve respectively. From Massachusetts the brothers passed to New York, and, in 1645, John and William appear among the patentees of Flushing, L. I. Thomas, the youngest brother, lived awhile at Flushing, but, in 1656, removed to Newtown, L. I., and became one of the patentees of that place. He subsequently purchased from the Dutch settlers a number of cultivated farms extending along the East River from Hell Gate Cove to Bowery Bay. He was quite active in the affairs of the Colony, and accepted the command of the troops raised in Queens County to defend Albany