ich had driven thousands of
industrious men to join their brethren in America, where they could
worship in peace, and where their presence was before long destined to
produce a formidable effect upon the impending struggle.

The whole condition of the country was miserable in the extreme.
Agriculture was at the lowest possible ebb. The Irish farmers, excluded
from the English and all foreign markets, were reduced to destitution.
Land was offered at fourteen and twelve years' purchase, and even at
those prices found no buyers. Many of the principal landowners were
absentees, and though the rents themselves do not seem as a rule to have
been high, the middlemen, by whom the land was commonly taken, ground
the wretched peasants under them to powder with their exactions. While
everything else was thus steadily shrinking, the pension list was
swelling until it stood not far short of L100,000. The additional troops
recently raised in Ireland had been sent to America, and their absence
had left the country all but defenceless. In 1779, an attempt was made
to carry out a levy of militia, in which Prostestants only were to be
enrolled, and an Act passed for the purpose. It failed utterly, for so
miserably bankrupt was the condition of the Irish Government, that it
was found impossible to collect money to pay the men, and the scheme in
consequence had to be given up.

It proved, however, to be the parent of a really successful one. In the
same year a volunteer movement sprang into sudden existence. Belfast had
been left empty of troops, and was hourly in fear of a French descent,
added to which it was harassed by the dread of a famous pirate of the
period, called Paul Jones. Under these circumstances its citizens
resolved to enrol themselves for their own defence. The idea, once
started, flew through the country like wild-fire. The old fighting
spirit sprang to sudden life at the cry to arms. After three-quarters of
a century of torpor all was stir and animation. In every direction the
gentry were enrolling their tenants, the sons of the great houses
officering the corps and drilling their own retainers. Merchants, peers,
members of Parliament all vied with one another, and in a few months'
time nearly 60,000 men had been enrolled.

Although a good deal alarmed at the rapidity of this movement, the
Government could not very well refuse to let the country arm in its own
defence, and 16,000 stand of arms, which had been brought o