mistress of the ocean, having swept it of all hostile shipping, and left
to the enemy little more than the small craft that sheltered in narrow
creeks and under the guns of well-defended harbours. Her army, if not
numerically large, had proved its valour on many a well-fought field,
and shown that it knew how to bring victory to light upon its standards;
and, what was not less a matter of wonder to others, and of pride to
herself, the abundance of her wealth and the extent of her resources
were shown to be without a parallel in the world. Napoleon was an exile
on the rock of St. Helena; the "Holy Alliance"--as the European,
sovereigns blasphemously designated themselves--were lording it over the
souls and bodies of men by "right divine;" the free and noble principles
in which the French Revolution had its origin were now sunk out of
sight, covered with the infamy of the Reign of Terror and the
responsibility of the series of desolating wars which had followed it,
and no man dared to speak for them. Those were dark days for Ireland.
Her parliament was gone, and in the blighting shade of the provincialism
to which she was reduced, genius and courage seemed to have died out
from the land. Thousands of her bravest and most devoted children had
perished in her cause--some on the scaffold, and others on the field of
battle--and many whose presence at home would have been invaluable to
her were obliged to seek safety in exile. So Erin, the crownless Queen,
sat in the dust with fetters on her limbs, her broken sword fallen from
her hand, and with mournful memories lying heavy on her heart. The
feelings of disappointment and grief then rankling in every Irish
breast are well mirrored in that plaintive song of our national poet,
which open with these tristful lines:---

"'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
Like heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead,
When man, from the slumber of ages awaking,