In a few years later a large proportion of the Irish Presbyterians, with a limited number of Catholics in Ulster, became engaged in commerce and various manufacturing interests. But all these people were ultimately ruined by England’s policy, that Ireland should not prosper, and they were gradually forced to leave the country to better their condition by emigration to the American colonies. The Presbyterians who settled in the north of Ireland, after the early part of the eighteenth century, had come chiefly from the central portion of England, and as a rule represented the better element among the new settlers. They, like Cromwell, hated the Scotch, and would never have accepted the term “Scotch-Irish” for themselves. After “the Restoration” these people in common with the Catholics, were only tolerated as non-conformists, and were not allowed by the Protestant authorities to take any part in public affairs. From adversity these people became in time more tolerant towards their fellow sufferers, the Catholic portion of the population, and were finally moulded into a remarkably fine and self-reliant type of men. Those who emigrated to the colonies were well fitted to help lay the foundation of the American Republic, and those who remained behind proved sturdy patriots. A little more than one hundred years ago they originated in Belfast the United Irishmen movement, and they were the first to make the demand for religious tolerance in Ireland, that their Catholic countrymen might be free to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. During the last century, Maine, New Hampshire, the greater part of Vermont and west Massachusetts, west Pennsylvania, a large portion of Maryland, the western part of Virginia, between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany mountains, into North Carolina, along the French Broad river, to the upper part of South Carolina, and into the territory now forming Tennessee and Kentucky, with a part of the northwest territory, to the north of the Ohio river, and which then belonged to Virginia, was largely, and in some sections was entirely, settled by Irish, who did not change their names before or after leaving Ireland. From the latter circumstance the course of settlement can be traced by the surnames of the first settlers, and the indications are rendered all the stronger by the names of so many settlements which clearly indicate the localities in Ireland whence these people came.