Excerpt from The History of the Volunteers of 1782 For all purposes but one, any details of the early Irish Parliaments would be unnecessary in this work. But it is thought advisable to place some facts, relative to these bodies, before the reader, for the purpose of his better understanding the struggle in which the Volun teers were engaged. And the institution they succeeded in restoring. We must not expect to find in the first parliaments held in Ireland, much of the form or spirit of modern legislative assemblies. The growth of these institutions has been slow; and the perfection of mod ern times, or any admixture of the democratic element, would be sought for in vain in the rude Baronial assemblies of ancient Ireland. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.