SNIPPET: The British were proud of their tradition of liberty. Their favorite 18th-century song, more popular with people at large than "God Save the King," was "Rule Britannia," with its stirring line "Britons never never never shall be slaves." GEORGE III, in the days when he was being tutored by LORD BUTE (pron."boot:) obediently wrote essays in which he declared, "The pride, the glory of Britain, and the direct end of its Constitution, t an industrial powerhouse. Inventions such as the spinning jenny were revolutionizing the production of cloth, and the steam engine was creating a new source of power. Hand in hand with new machines went a bold spirit of enterprise, which inspired manufacturers such as potter Josiah WEDGWOOD to build great companies. The leaders of these industries were enlightened men who often called for reforms in the government to bring order to the cities and improve the health and happiness of the millions of English who did not enjoy the nation's imperial prosperity. But the English political system remained in the grip of the aristocracy. Out of a total population of eight million, only 215,000 males could vote. Moreover, there were almost incredible imbalances between population and representation. The county of Middlesex, which included London, contained well over a million people. They returned eight members to Parliament, while Cornwall sent 44. Major cities - Manchester, Birmingham - had no representation at all ... votes could be bought and sold. American visitors were appalled by the corruption of British elections. Almost half the nation made less than 50 pounds a year. Tens of thousands struggled for survival in gin-soaked city slums that were degrading beyond belief. There was a constant fear of the resentful poor. Between 1740 and 1775, England was shaken by no fewer than 159 major riots. There is little doubt that without the army, the country would have collapsed into anarchy. In 1757, when riots protesting a rise in the price of bread and other basic foods swept London and other cities, twenty regiments were deployed to restore order. There was another reason to worry about British liberty. Forty miles from England across the Irish sea lay a country of 6 million people living under a tyranny more absolute than anything inflicted by Catherine the Great of Russia or Frederick the Great of Prussia. The perpetrators of this tyranny were English. After the Irish chose the losing side in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, most of the nation's leaders were driven into exile, more or less decapitating the country. The Irish Parliament, controlled by England, voted a series of "penal laws" that denied Catholics the right to vote or to own land or any other kind of property worth more than five pounds. In 1719, the English Parliament issued a Declaratory Act that gave them the right to legislate for Ireland "in all cases whatsoever." When Benjamin FRANKLIN visited Ireland in 1771, he was appalled by how totally crushed the country was by the ruthless application of English power. "The appearances of general extreme poverty among the lower people are amazing," he wrote a Boston friend. They live in wretched hovels of mud and straw, are clothed in rags and subsist chiefly on potatoes. Our New England farmers of the poorest sort are ... princes when compared to them." How could a nation supposedly devoted to liberty inflict such oppression on a neighboring people? That was a question asked by not a few Irishmen who came to England in search of a better life. One of the more brilliant of these exiles was (County Longford's) Oliver GOLDSMITH. In the journalism he practiced between his poetry and plays, he gave English liberty a Celtic horselaugh. In one series of sketches, GOLDSMITH reported on England through the eyes of a Chinese philosopher who found "liberty is echoed in all their assemblies and thousands might be found ready to offer up their lives for the sound, though perhaps not one of all the number understands its meaning." -- Excerpts, "Liberty! The American Revolution," Thomas FLEMING (1997).