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"Stript, wounded, beaten, nigh to death, I saw him by the highway-side."

Those who have read the volume called Ireland's Welcome, have been informed that I left New York in the spring of 1844, for the purpose of exploring and ascertaining, by eye-witness, the real condition of a people whose history has been mixed with fable, and whose true character has been as little understood as their sufferings have been mitigated.

In pursuing this work, the object is not precisely the same as in the preceding one; that was but the surface—the rippling of that mighty sea, whose waves have since been casting up little else but "mire and dirt," and whose deep and continual upheavings plainly indicate that the foundations, if not destroyed, are fast breaking up. I then aimed at nothing more than giving a simple narration of facts, as they passed under observation, leaving the reader to comment upon those