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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48

Prefatory Note

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Prefatory Note.

Dr. Stokes, in his "Life of Dr. Petrie," says: "The time for a true, critical history of Ireland has not yet arrived." Though in some respects, strange that it should be so, this statement is doubtless correct. At all events this is the fact, that some of the greatest historians that Britain ever produced have of late years, to a greater or less extent, tried their hands upon Irish history, and have done so with only very questionable success. Their success has discouraged the present writer from attempting to carry out what he has often thought of, and in some measure prepared himself for, namely, trying his own hand upon the history of his unhappy country. Meantime, at the request of friends who heard it, he gives to the public this lecture, which was read in Mahurangi and Matakana, for the benefit of the public libraries belonging to these settlements. It may be of some use, in the present critical posture of Irish affairs, in enabling some people to understand how Ireland is as it is.

St. Columba's Manse, Mahurangi,