THEIR HEIGHT, FORM, AND STRENGTH. 63 



meal, are in general neither so strong nor so hand- 

 some as the same rank of people in England, who 

 are fed with wheaten bread. They neither work so 

 well, nor look so well. . . . But it seems other- 

 wise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and 

 coalheavers in London, and those unfortunate women 

 who live on the streets, the strongest men and the 

 most beautiful women perhaps in the British domin- 

 ' ions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from 

 the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are gener- 

 ally fed with this root. No food can afford a more 

 decisive proof of its nourishing qualities, or of its 

 being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human 

 constitution." 



50. In 1779 there were thirty-nine general officers 

 of Irish birth or descent in the American Revolu- 

 tionary Armies. In reply to a question of Edmund 

 Burke at a Parliamentary inquiry, General Robert- 

 son testified that the American General Lee said : 

 " Half the rebel army is from Ireland." And before 

 a Parliamentary Committee in 1779, Mr. Galloway, 

 a former secretary of the Pensylvania Legislature, 

 stated that " the rebel armies are one quarter of 

 American birth, one quarter of English and Scotch, 

 and one-half Irish." One quarter of the signers of 

 the Declaration of Independence were Irish, eight of 

 the thirteen colonies had Irish governors, so says 



