In the mean time, doubtless, there was weeping and wailing at the homes of the pressed seamen. Parents, tottering on the verge of the grave, and deprived of their natural support—wives and children at the fireside uncheered by the presence of the head of the family—could only weep for the absent ones, and pray that their government might one day cease to be tyrannical.
CHAPTER VII.
IRISH SLAVERY.
For centuries the Irish nation has groaned under the yoke of England. The chain has worn to the bone. The nation has felt its strength depart. Many of its noblest and fairest children have pined away in dungeons or starved by the roadside. The tillers of the soil, sweating from sunrise to sunset for a bare subsistence, have been turned from their miserable cabins—hovels, yet homes—and those who have been allowed to remain have had their substance devoured by a government seemingly never satisfied with the extent of its taxation. They have suffered unmitigated persecution for daring to have a religion of their own. Seldom has a conquered people suffered more from the cruelties and exactions of the conquerors. While Clarkson and Wilberforce were giving their untiring labours to the cause of emancipating negro slaves thousands of miles away, they overlooked a hideous system of slavery at their very doors—the slavery of a people capable of enjoying the highest degree of civil and religious freedom. Says William Howitt—
IRISH TENANT ABOUT TO EMIGRATE.