Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Ireland awakened to a sense of her slavery—The Irish Parliament totally independent of England—The King acknowledged in Ireland through his Irish crown, and not through the crown of England—Perilous position of England—-Moderation and attachment of Ireland—Ireland deter-i mined to demand her just rights—Conspiracy against the mumjfactures of Ireland—The non-consumption agreement adopted throughout all Ireland—Progress of the Volunteers—Their principal Leaders—Sir John Parnell—-His character—General effects of volunteering upon the people of Ireland. I. The population of Ireland, distributed into thosa classes, endowed with those qualities, and borne down by an accumulation of impolitic and ungenerous restraints, at length awakened as it were from a deep trance. The pulse of that nation, torpid through habitual oppression, began to throb; her blood, stimulated by the stings of injustice, which she had so long and so patiently endured, circulated with a new rapidity; her heart, re-animated, sent motion and energy through her whole frame; and from a cold and almost lifeless corse, Ireland was seen majestically arising from the tomb of obscurity, and paying the first tribute of her devption at the shrine of liberty. Roused to a sense of her miserable situation, she cast her eyes around on the independent States of Europe, and compared their strength, their capacity, and their resources with her own. Encouraged by the view of her comparative superiority, she soon perceived that she had strength, and means, and opportunity to redress herself from the wrongs and degradations she was suffering; and ' that so long as she tolerated the authority of the British Legislature over her concerns, so long her commerce, her constitution, and her liberties, must lie prostrate a...