they were pathetically called, flew to Austria and, above all, to France, where, in the ranks of the celebrated Irish Brigade--'ever and everywhere' true to the Bourbon lilies--they won renown at Dettingen, Fontenoy, and other fields of fame. The aspect of Ireland bore too faithful witness to the misery engendered in this evil order of things. The country was still covered with the wrecks of the late wars; the habitations, even of the Protestant gentry, were squalid and mean; the towns were, in many instances, sinking into decay; the peasantry were huddled together into villages of huts; the traveller roamed through vast wastes of unfenced pasturage, evidences of a land almost left in a state of nature. Hideous famines were of repeated occurrence; one, that of 1739-41, swept the population away in tens of thousands; the Irish Parliament characteristically did nothing to help the sufferers; it met the emergency by strengthening the means to enforce the payment of rent. The miserable condition of Ireland was made worse by the legislation of the British Parliament, which treated the country as a conquered colony; and, true to the principles of the mercantile system, impeded or prevented the growth of several Irish industries. This was, of course, most injurious to the Protestant settlers; but these were held down by the ruling power; as was finely said, 'they knelt to England on the necks of their countrymen.' The state of things in the colonised parts of Ulster was somewhat better; but the Scottish and Presbyterian population of this corner of Ireland had not a few causes of serious complaint.[40]