When the restoration of the Stuarts to power became apparent, still greater numbers of the republicans and non-conformists sought refuge in New England from the persecutions which they foresaw awaited them. To the descendants of these men, inheriting the noble detestation of arbitrary power which so strikingly distinguished their forefathers, America owes all her _real_ greatness. The New England men still exhibit a distinct feature in American society, and probably possess more virtue, intelligence, and independence of character than is to be found in any other state in the union.--_See Doctor Dwight’s Travels in New England._ (7) _“In motive pure;” &c._ For the disinterestedness of IRETON’S motives in the discharge of his public functions, the following anecdote from LUDLOW, who was next in command to him in Ireland, at the period of the transaction, shall suffice. “The parliament,” he says, “also ordered an act to be brought in, for settling two thousand pounds per annum on the lord-deputy IRETON,” (out of the confiscated estates of the Duke of Buckingham, and which, therefore, it might have been thought he could have the more conscientiously accepted than, though it had been drawn directly from the pockets of the people,) the news of which, being brought over, was so unacceptable to him, that he said, they had many just debts, which he desired they would pay before they made such presents; that he had no need of their lands, _and would not have it_; and that _he should be more contented to see them doing the service of the nation, than so liberal in disposing of the public treasure!_--What would the patriotic general have said of some modern British parliaments?--No wonder, that the hungry place and pension hunting pack, that returned in the train of Charles the second, procured the exhumation of the bones of such an enemy to their tribe as IRETON: the light of whose glory, in his generosity and disinterestedness, showed so much of the deformity of their mercenary and malignant natures--that indignity towards all that remained of him, in their power, as far as their little malice could accomplish it, was necessary to give them any degree of consequence, even in their own eyes. FINIS. S. BENNETT, PRINTER, NOTTINGHAM. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ireton, A Poem, by Thomas Bailey