The increase of human life in Ireland was perhaps the most memorable in the annals of statistics. In the beginning of the eighteenth century the population was calculated at little more than 700,000. It now started forth by _millions_. And the national increase of wealth, intelligence, and public spirit, was shown in a manner equally significant and singular. Ireland had the honour of _inventing_ (if we may use the word) the Volunteers. The threat of a French invasion had alarmed the people, and Parliament asked the important question of the Viceroy, What forces were provided for the defence of the kingdom? His answer was, that he had but 7000 men at his disposal. The nation instantly determined to take the defence on themselves, and they raised an army such as the world had never before seen—wholly spontaneous in its rise, self-equipped, serving without pay, self-disciplined—80,000 men ready for the field! The armies of Greece and Rome, even when republican, were _conscriptions_; the _levée en masse_ in France was compulsory, and the guillotine was the recruiting officer; the gigantic columns of the Imperial armies were chiefly raised under the absolute scourge. The _land-sturm_ of the Germans was created under the rigidity of a system which drove the whole population into the field—rightly and righteously drove them; for what but the low selfishness of brawling and bustling Radicalism, or the petty penury of superannuated avarice, would declare it a hardship to defend one’s own country, or hesitate to pay the manly and necessary expenditure which fitted them for that defence? But Ireland, without hesitation, and without stipulation—without the pitiful pusillanimity of a weaver’s soul and body, or the shrinking selfishness of a pawnbroker in the shape of a legislator—rushed to arms, and scared away invasion! The expense of this illustrious effort was enormous, the occupation of time incalculable—but the act was heroic. And let what will come, whether Ireland is to have a career worthy of her natural powers, or to perish under the ascendancy of her deadly superstition, that _act_ will form the brightest jewel in her historic diadem, as it will the noblest inscription on her tomb. But the whole effort implied the prosperity, as well as the patriotism, of the kingdom. Paupers cannot equip themselves for the field. The country must have had substantial resources to meet the expenditure. The arming of the volunteers would have exhausted the treasury of half the sovereigns of Europe, and yet the country bore it freely, fearlessly, and without feeling the slightest embarrassment in those efforts which were at the moment extending her interests through the world.