Prior to the American Revolution, there had been a steady tide of emigration from Ireland to America, it had not assumed anything like the proportions which this century has witnessed. At different times during the latter half of the seventeenth century
there were causes in operation which induced extensive eminoration to the various Catholic countries of the Old World, and a few ship-loads of emigrants arrived at Barbados.
Under the Cromwellian government, shiploads of Irish men, women, and children had been dispatched to the Colonies, including New England and to the West Indies, under conditions which left them
little better than slaves. But with the restoration of the Stuarts there came a suspension, not only of religious persecution, but of the Navigation Laws, which formed a leading feature of a policy for the repression of Irish industries theretofore enforced by England.
The expulsion of James II., and the accession of William and Mary
to the throne was accompanied by a revival of discrimination against Irish manufactures, and a flood of emigration to all parts of Christendom followed.
