Charles Lucas now began his career of patriotism; for at last Irish Protestants were beginning to see, that if Irish Catholics suffered, Irish interests would suffer also; and if Irish interests suffered, they should have their share in the trial.  A union between England and Ireland, such as has since been carried out, was now proposed, and violent excitement followed.  A mob, principally composed of Protestants, broke into the House of Lords; but the affair soon passed over, and the matter was dropped.

George II. died suddenly at Kensington, and was succeeded by his grandson, George III.  But I shall request the attention of the reader to some remarks of considerable importance with regard to foreign events, before continuing the regular course of history.  The predilections of the late King for his German connexions, had led him into war both with France and Spain; the imprudence of ministers, if not the unwise and unjust policy of colonial government, involved the country soon after in a conflict with the American dependencies.  In each of these cases expatriated Irishmen turned the scale against the country from which they had been so rashly and cruelly ejected.  In France, the battle of Fontenoy was won mainly by the Irish Brigade, who were commanded by Colonel Dillon; and the defeat of England by the Irish drew from George II. the well-known exclamation:  “Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects!” In Spain, where the Irish officers and soldiers had emigrated by thousands, there was scarcely an engagement in which they did not take a prominent and decisive part.  In Canada, the agitation against British exactions was commenced by Charles Thompson, an Irish emigrant, and subsequently the Secretary of Congress; Montgomery, another Irishman, captured Montreal and Quebec; O’Brien and Barry, whose names sufficiently indicate their nationality, were the first to command in the naval engagements; and startled England began to recover slowly and sadly from her long infatuation, to discover what had, indeed, been discovered by the sharp-sighted Schomberg[553] and his master long before, that Irishmen, from their habits of endurance and undaunted courage, were the best soldiers she could find, and that, Celts and Papists as they were, her very existence as a nation might depend upon their co-operation.

The agrarian outrages, the perpetrators of which were known at first by the name of Levellers, and eventually by the appellation of Whiteboys, commenced immediately after the accession of George III.  An English traveller, who carefully studied the subject and who certainly could have been in no way interested in misrepresentation, has thus described the cause and the motive of the atrocities they practised.  The first cause was the rapacity of the landlords, who, having let their lands far above their value, on condition of allowing the tenants the use of certain commons, now enclosed the commons, but did not lessen the rent.