half the year, and very rarely taste of that flesh meat with which we so much abound, but are pinched in every article of life.'

Not long afterwards, Swift, in his short view of Ireland, says, ""Whatever stranger took a journey amongst us would be apt to think himself travelling in Lapland or Iceland, rather than in a country so favoured by nature as ours, both in fruitfulness of soil and temperature of climate. The miserable dress and diet, and dwelling of the people; the general desolation in most parts of the kingdom; the old seats of the nobility and gentry in ruins, and no new ones in their stead; the families of the farmers, who pay great rents, living in filth and nastiness, upon butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English hog-stie to receive them. These," says Swift, "are the comfortable sights which await an absentee when he may be induced to travel for once amongst them to learn their language;" or, as at present,' adds Mr. Sadler, to make a book, and talk patriotically on his return.'

The disciples of Mr. Malthus use the number of idle and unoccupied labourers as an argument to prove that the present population of Ireland is redundant. This fact will not sustain the inference which is drawn from it. Sir William Petty assures us that, in his time, when the population of Ireland did not exceed one million three hundred thousand, one-fifth of the whole were not employed. However wretched may be the present condition of the people of Ireland, it is not quite so bad as this.

The scarcities which occasionally prevail in Ireland have been put forward as furnishing another proof of a superabundant population. This argument, also, Mr. Sadler has most completely refuted. It is a fact capable of being substantiated by indisputable evidence, that,

' in former times, when the population of Ireland was extremely scanty, these scarcities not only occurred much more frequently, but continued much longer than they have done at any recent period. "If our crop fails," says Archbishop Boulter, "or yields indifferently, our poor have not money to buy bread. This was the case in 1725, and last year; and without a prodigious crop, will be more so this year. When I went my visitation last year, barley, in some inland places, sold at six shillings the bushel to make bread of; and oatmeal, the bread of the north, sold for twice or thrice its usual price. We met all the roads full of whole families that had left their homes to beg abroad, since their neighbours had nothing to relieve them with. And as the winter subsistence of the poor is chiefly potatoes, this scarcity drove the poor to begin with their potatoes before they were full grown, so that they have lost half the benefit of them, and have spent their stock two months sooner than usual; and oatmeal is, at this distance from harvest, in many parts of the kingdom, three times the customary price; so that this summer

will be more fatal to us than the last, when, I fear, many perished of famine."

hundreds

In subsequent letters addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, he gives a most melancholy picture of the misery and privation of the Irish population, and represents them as suffering little less than a famine every other year.' On most of these occasions, public subscriptions were raised, and grants of money made from the Exchequer for their relief. About 1740, when the population of Ireland did not exceed one-third of its present amount, these scenes of misery and horror returned: between 1741 and 1752 the price of flour had risen above four hundred per cent., and thousands of poor people are said to have perished through absolute starvation. In the years 1757, 1765, 1770 and 1771 dearths occurred: private subscriptions were raised, and grants of public money made for the relief of the Irish population, although Ireland contained at that time at least forty acres of land for the support of each family. Hence, it appears, that in a period of less than half a century, that is, from 1724 to 1772, there occurred in Ireland what may be termed eleven years of famine; the highest number of the people being about two millions and a half. Since that period, the population of Ireland has almost trebled its then amount. What has been the result? Have the scarcities and dearths of Ireland come to be, as population increased, of more frequent occurrence, of longer duration, or of greater intensity?

'Can those who now hear me deny,' said the celebrated Mr. Foster, (addressing, in 1800, the representatives of Ireland, who, it is presumed, will be acknowledged to have been pretty competent to form an opinion on this matter,) that since the period of 1782, Ireland has risen in civilization, in wealth, in manufactures, in a greater proportion, and with a more rapid progress than any other country in Europe.' The late Lord Sheffield, than whom no man had paid more attention to, or was more intimately conversant with, the affairs and condition of that island, asserts, that the improvement of Ireland is as rapid as any country ever experienced.' In 1805 Major Newenham presented the public with a series of tables, which throw great light on all questions connected with the population and condition of his native land. He assures his readers, that these tables evince, beyond the possibility of a doubt, a most rapid increase of the people in Ireland: and, at the same time, exhibit in a clear light, this interesting fact that, within the last five-and-twenty years, or thereabout, the food in that country has not been merely commensurate with, but has greatly surpassed the rapid and well-authenticated increase of its population.' To the same

effect

effect we shall give an extract from the anonymous pamphlet, which professes to give a correct representation of The Real State of Ireland in 1827.' The author is evidently a man of talents, of sound sense and of correct feeling he has resided for years among the peasantry whose condition he describes; he speaks to facts of which he has been an eye-witness.

:

'Notwithstanding the wilderness of words, oral and written, which has of late years been wasted on the affairs of Ireland, and the paroxysm of legislation under which we have laboured, arising out of the perpetual discussion of her misfortunes and her faults, I am grieved to acknowledge that the proceedings even of the present session of parliament compel me to think that the people of England are greatly uninformed, or, what is worse, greatly misinformed as to our real condition. A plain Englishman despairs of eliciting truth from the mass of conflicting testimonies that exist on the subject; and I am persuaded, that the impression on the minds of the mass of the English nation is much less favourable, with respect to Ireland and her population, than it would be, but for the violence of certain political agitators, who put forward, in the most conspicuous light, the worst aspect of our country, and the worst portion of our population, (namely, themselves,) so as to prevent the whole truth from being accurately known. I myself, whilst I lived only in the capital, was satisfied with such vague notions of our peasantry, as, that they were very dirty and cheerful whilst they could get enough of potatoes, and very wretched and turbulent when they could not; that popery and potatoes were, in themselves, baneful evils, greatly incompatible with peace and order; and, finally, that of all the king's subjects the men of the south of Ireland were the most ignorant and miserable: but of late years I have resided much amongst those very men of the south, and my views on these subjects have undergone considerable modification in consequence.'-Real State of Ireland, pp. 2, 3.

That a tolerably large sum of privation and distress does exist in Ireland is indeed undeniable; but since I have resided in the country, and have become minutely acquainted with the facts, I have satisfied myself that the suffering, taken absolutely, is considerably less than has been generally supposed; that, compared with the hardships endured by the population of England, its excess is not so very great, and that this excess, such as it is, will gradually diminish till it vanish altogether, even without the aid of any new express enactments on the subject.

I have heard men, who could talk on most subjects with an ordinary degree of sanity, assert, that the majority of the working classes in Ireland live, or, rather, starve, upon potatoes and water as their only means of sustenance; and that their only clothing consists of the coarsest rags, so torn that they are never taken off at night, because the owner must despair of again finding his way into them, should he at any time incautiously doff them from his These and many person.

such

such things I heard, and partly I believed them, but now I know that these things are not true. The race of very small farmers (I do not mean in person, for they are commonly tall varlets) is, indeed, much more numerous here than in England, or than it is at all desirable it should be anywhere; but it very rarely happens that these men, holding, as they do, from six up to sixty-acres of land, Irish measurement, fail to procure moderately good food and raiment, wherewith they can be content. It is true that very little money circulates amongst them; I myself have known repeated instances of twelve such farmers being unable to club together five pounds at a time when they earnestly desired to do so, nor is this so much to be wondered at amongst an agricultural population unaided by manufactures; but the poorest of them has, at least, one cow, and several pigs and poultry, and most of them have more cows than one, and a horse. The produce of the farm (including butter, which those who are poorest sell, and do not eat) pays the rent and other land charges, supplies the family with potatoes, feeds the live stock abovementioned. The man and sons not yet married, besides tilling the land and cutting turf for fuel, which is commonly a privilege of their holding, are able to devote some time to the labour of others, either in ornamental improvement for their landlord or upon the public roads. The usual rate of wages for country labour is eight-pence a day, and though they cannot always procure employment when they wish for it, even at this small remuneration, yet they can and do procure enough to enable them to provide themselves and their families with clothes and other indispensable necessaries, and remember, I am now speaking of the very poorest class of farmers.'

I had occasion lately to inquire after the welfare of the family of one of our tenants who had died some time before. "How are Peggy Doolan and her children coming on since she lost her husband?" said I to the under-steward. "Is it the widow Doolan, that lives yander below on the hill, your honour?" "The same." "Troth, thin, plase your honor, I seen them have plenty of elegant pratees, wid eggs galore, an lashins of milk, an its hard if that doesn't sarve them, wid your honour's good word." Such, I can assure you to be much more nearly a true description of the fare of the Irish peasantry in general, than the potatoes and water above recited. We have all been so much in the habit of talking about the moral degradation of the Irish, their filth and their misery, as things of course and undeniably true, that, I fear, it may not be easy to undeceive the public mind on the subject, and to convince men-especially those whom it is most important to convince, the manufacturers, namely, and capitalists of England-that Ireland is really a place where a great deal of industry, comfort, and happiness already exist amongst the common people; where justice is truly and indifferently administered by general laws, much in the manner it is on their own side of the Channel, and where all the same provisions for the security of rights and property exist, and are carried into effect with nearly the same certainty and speed as amongst them

selves.

selves. In truth, like Ajax in the fight, we ask but for light and fair play; give us these and a clear stage, and in all brotherly affection will we try a fall with merry England; nor let it be forgotten, whilst we improve each other's strength and skill in the friendly contest, that should we at any time avail ourselves of the Rosicrucian privilege, so longed for by Celia, to take the strong fellow by the leg, we mean no harm by it, but only follow our national method of displaying love and regard.'-Ibid. p. 14-19.

We are thus enabled to pronounce, upon evidence which cannot be disputed, that, whatever increase may have taken place in the population of Ireland within the last two hundred years, the produce raised in that country for subsisting them has increased in a much greater ratio. The produce of Ireland bears a much greater proportion to the seven millions' of the nineteenth century than the food raised in that island did to the one million' of the seventeenth century. Although still far behind the same class in England, it must yet be acknowledged, that, for the last fifty years, a rapid and progressive improvement has been taking place in the condition of the Irish peasantry. Notwithstanding the groans which have been sent forth on the subject, each constituent member of the existing seven millions' is better lodged, better clothed, and better fed, than he would have been had he been a contemporary of the one million that fed on shamrocks and lived in sties in the time of Sir William Petty. While the population of Ireland was thin, and scattered over a partially occupied and imperfectly cultivated surface, it was exposed to constantly recurring famines, and to epidemics and pestilential fevers, arising from a deficiency of food, which swept away the people by thousands and tens of thousands. Now that the greater proportion of the land of that island has been reclaimed and brought under tillage, and that the density of the population has increased four or five-fold, these periodical visitations of famine and fever return with less frequency and diminished violence; for it would be easy to show that the distress in 1822, was entirely independent of a deficiency in the usual produce of Ireland.

The slightest investigation of the progress of society in this country will furnish ample evidence of a similar tendency. If we go back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when our population was, in comparison with its present amount, thin and scanty, we shall find that evils and sufferings, which afflicted Ireland at a late period, then prevailed in England: scarcity, dearths, famines, were calamities of constant recurrence; and these were followed by their inevitable consequences-epidemics and pestilential diseases, which swept away thousands of the people. It may be most safely asserted, that, of the twelve

million