ble characters upon the face of Egypt; can any one doubt
the adequacy of the same Providence to the discovery of
another root, by which the present produce of the soil of
Ireland might be multiplied ten fold more, if that were need-
ful. This necessity, however, does not exist ; for even as
Ireland now stands (to say nothing of the millions of acres
lying waste) it is thought by good judges, that her soil under
stock and cultivation, could be made to produce food for
thirty millions of men, although her population is, at most,
but eight.
And if this be a fact in the statistical history of our coun-
try, will any man presume to say, that her miseries arise from
the pressure of a surplus population, and not from those
unjust monopolies, by which the wealth of a nation is col-
lected into large masses in the hands of a few, while the
many who produce that wealth by their labours are left to
perish ; although it is obvious to common sense, and to all
just notions of Christian policy, that a trade in provisions
should be strictly confined to the surplus produce of the soil,
and that no food should be permitted to be stored in grana-
ries or exported to foreign countries, until the wants of the
people, who had produced that food by their labours, (and
who have evidently a strict claim in nature to the first fruits)
had been previously well supplied.
THE TITHE QUESTION.
A hint to the British Government, and to the Landed Interest of Ireland, on the
Tithe Question.
If government hope to get rid of this question, by any
modification of the Tithe Tax, that will not wholly and
effectually deliver the tenantry of Ireland from that burthen,
for which they receive no equivalent, (in the maintenance of
their poor, or in the instruction of their people,) then govern-
ment mistake the matter. If the burthen shall be imposed
THE TITHE QUESTION. 169
upon the landlords, with the power to these latter to enforce
repayment from their tenants ; or if government shall charge
themselves with the collection of the tax through their coun-
ty treasurers ; in either of these cases the source of civil dis-
cord will remain, and that warfare of the people against the
parsons, which of course would terminate with the extinc-
tion of the tax, will be transferred to the landlord, or to the
agents of the government, who are sent to collect it in con-
nection with other imposts ; and these imposts, which no
man now disputes, will also be rendered unpopular ; and
after the country, by the imposition of this tax in a new
form, has been thrown into new fermentation after law
and order have been interrupted and set at defiance by new
insurrections after people have been forced into a state of
warfare with their landlords, or with the government itself;
after they have been taught to examine into the foundation
of titles to property, and into the equity of institutions that
(but for the tithe tax) would never have been questioned
after blood has been shed, and the constitution suspended,
and thousands of lives have been lost (supposing the evil to
extend no farther) after the people have been long trained
in habits of hatred and disaffection to the government and
laws ; what then will be the upshot of all this evil ? It will
be simply this, that the tithe tax must in the end be given
up ; and why ? First, because when a tax is universally
odious and unpopular, it is nearly impossible to collect it.
Secondly, because when it is unjust and arbitrary in its prin-
ciple, a large proportion of the talent, and the entire virtue
of the country, are united with the people against it ; and,
in a free country, these powers combined and acting steadily
together, must finally subdue it. Thirdly, because when
the tax is intended for the support of a ministry, from whom
the people receive no equivalent, and who offer them the
Bible with one hand, while they present a loaded musket
with the other, the spirit of resistance to this tax, becomes
inflamed to madness ; and any danger will be incurred, and
every difficulty will be surmounted to resist it. And lastly,
170 IRELAND,
because the enforcement of such a tax generates otJier ques-
tions of right, as has been already noticed, increases agita-
tion, inflames the wound, widens the breach, provokes a
settled feeling of hostility to the authors and supporters of
such a law ; and no government wishing to discharge its
duty to itself, will continue to risque the consequences of
such a state of society for the maintenance of a tax injurious
to the state, prejudicial to religion, unjust in its principle,
and both hateful and oppressive to the majority of the peo-
ple. It will therefore be given up, after much mischief has
been done, because in such circumstances it could not be
perseveringly forced upon a whole nation determined to
resist it.
Were the measure of our power and influence equivalent
to the measure of our good-will, we would nerve the arm of
government by another course. We would abolish this and
every other obviously unjust and oppressive impost. We
would purify our law system from all abuses. (The legis-
lator may smile at this ; but he should recollect that this is
his proper business, and if he does not execute it, he is a
nuisance.) We would afford immediate redress to every
case of real grievance. We would guard the labourer's
rights, and provide for the destitute poor by special laws ;
and having thus done our duty by the people, we would
have all that was good and virtuous in the country to sup-
port our laws and institutions; and should just and moderate
taxes for the maintenance of the state and civil order, or
the titles to property under the act of settlement, or legal
contracts of any kind ; or the public peace, the security of
life and property, or the civil and religious privileges of the
subject, be menaced or invaded by an ignorant and deluded
populace, the tools of faction, we would then adopt a sum-
mary and effectual mode of restoring the deluded to their
senses ; but previously to our entering on this course of law,
we would appoint confidential agents to meet the people in
the disturbed districts, to hear from their own mouths the
ground of their complaints ; and if these were well founded,
THE TITHE QUESTION. 171
if they arose from an oppressive exercise of constitutional
right, by landlords or other individuals, we would withhold
the insurrection act from the disturbed districts until justice
had been done ; for in a war with poverty and ignorance,
we would have equity, honour, and humanity, for our allies,
and not a host of oppressors and oppressive impositions.
TITHES RESUMED.
To Sir Hussey Vivian, &c. &c. on the Tithe Question.
(First published in the Pilot Newspaper of Dublin; then in the Morning
Register, and afterwards in the Tradesman's Journal.)
SIR, Your cool and clever reply to the commentary of
the Freeman newspaper, upon certain statements of yours
which appeared in print, relative to the intimately connected
subjects of Tithes and murders in Ireland, clearly prove you
to be a man of tact, and no stranger to the arts of sophistry
and logic.
In the few remarks which I now presume to address to
you, I shall confine myself exclusively to the former question,
as I have no taste for murders in a free state, and shall
reserve for a future and more favourable medium of commu-
nication with the public, an examination of the causes by
which these murders have been produced.
The pith and marrow of the argument you have advanced
to prove that tithes are perfectly harmless to the tenant, may
be summed up in one short sentence, thus If two estates
of equal soil and measurement are let out in farms one at
,10,000 per annum, tithe free; and the other at 9,000
subject to the tithe-tax, is not this tax perfectly harmless to
the tenant, since the landlord of the tithe-free property
pockets the thousand a-year, which, on a change of cir-
cumstances, would drop into the pocket of the parson ; (and
you might have strengthened your argument by adding) who
lives and spends his income with the people who produce
it, while the landlord is too frequently an absentee and an
oppressor.
Having thus triumphantly proved that the tithe-tax is as
172 IRELAND,
perfectly harmless in the pocket of the parson as in that of
the landlord, you then wisely conclude, that the opposition
which has been long given to that tax in Ireland, has its
principal or only source in the hatred of a factious people to
the laws and institutions of their Saxon conquerors ; entirely
forgetting, par accident, that the Saxon Quakers have been
protesting against this tax in all their yearly Epistles and
Public Records for nearly two hundred years; and that the
gospel has interdicted a forced maintenance for its ministers,
as an insult to the providence and power of its Author.
Having totally forgotten this part of your political creed as a
professed Christian, and thrown overboard the injustice and
impolicy of forcing upon an impoverished people, the main-
tenance of a ministry from which they receive no spiritual
benefit ; it is not surprising that you should stumble, as a
dernier resource, upon the wise conclusion, that the spirit
of resistance to tithes in Ireland, has derived its existence
from the long-cherished hatred of a factious and discon-
tented people to their Saxon conquerors !
In noticing the glittering link which you have thus inge-
niously struck out from a long chain of arguments connected
with this question, and which you have shrewdly separated
from alt those links of history, sound policy, equitable law,
and Christian doctrine, that, by the force of contrast, would
have stripped your cunningly selected link of its deceitful
gilding, and exhibited the baseness of its metal to the world;
I shall not occupy your time with the corrupt origin of
tithes in the Christian church, nor with the well-known
perversion of church property from its original uses, nor
with the enormous value of Irish church lands (so amply
equivalent to the maintenance of a gorgeous church, with-
out the oppressions of the tithe-tax) nor with the wicked
and unchristian policy of placing our CHURCH and COUN-
TRY in opposition to each other by this iniquitous impost;
but shall come at once to your cardinal argument, namely,
that the payment of tithes to the clergy of our church is an
imposition quite harmless to the tenantry of Ireland, since if
THE TITHE QUESTION. 173
the clergy do not receive them (as in the case of lands tithe-
free) the landlord will enforce them in the shape of rent,
and consequently, if a second tenth of the produce of our
soil were set apart for the support of the Catholic clergy,
and a third tenth for that of the Protestant Dissenting
Churches, they too would prove harmless to the people,
since in the case of lands tithe-free, the landlord would levy
the amount of these two tenths also in the shape of rent,
and so on ad infinitum, for any number of tenths that you
may choose to appoint for the maintenance of our numerous
priesthoods. This is the point to which your argument
conducts us ; and if it has any force, the three tenths just
noticed would prove as harmless as the one tenth now
imposed by law ; for by no rule of logic can you produce
one harmful composition from three harmless ingredients,
or one unit from three ciphers ; and hence you have tri-
umphantly proved that it is a matter of the utmost indiffer-
ence to the people of Ireland, whether one tenth, two tenths,
or three tenths of their property shall be wrested from them
for the support of a system of METAPHYSICS of which they
know nothing, and which, (supposing your report of the
murders committed in Ireland within the neighbourhoods
of our garrisons to be correct, and which I am sure it is)
instead of producing peace on earth, and good-will to man,
appears to have been the unhappy occasion of grievous legal
extortion, very general discontent, extensive burnings of
property, and an incalculable number of cruel and cold-
blooded murders !
Wishing you joy, Sir Hussey, of the triumph of your
argument, I have the honour to be, with sentiments of
admiration for the tact and talent with which you flourished
your gilded link before the simple people of Ireland,
Your very humble and admiring Servant,
A. ATKINSON,
An Irish Patriot, although a Protestant and Saxon.
174 IRELAND,
GRAND JURY SYSTEM.
We copy the following excellent expose of the Irish
grand jury system from a London journal. The writer of
the article was evidently an Irishman, well acquainted with
the grand jury system of his country ; and he has drawn
a picture of the job so perfectly to the life, that we shall
make no apology for presenting our readers with the full
length portrait of this accurate and honest artist.
" The recent disturbances in Ireland," says the writer in
this paper (the Atlas, we believe, for we cut out the article
some time since, and the paper is not now before us)
" evidently springing from the wants of the people, have
drawn renewed attention to the affairs of that unfortunate
country. Healing measures are useless. There must be a
radical change in the whole domestic policy of Ireland.
The poor laws, useful as they would prove, could not reach
the complicated evils that beset the legislator who dedicates
his enquiries to Irish misery. Amongst those evils there
is none that calls more loudly for reformation than the grand
jury system. It is contrived, with exquisitely cunning skill,
to administer to the interest of the broken down gentry, and
to grind the poor. An Englishman would find considerable
difficulty before he could comprehend the details by which
these ends are compassed. The presentments are usually
enormous : and are almost invariably for purposes, the bene-
fits of which devolve upon the jurors themselves or their
immediate friends. But it must not be supposed that the
labourers employed in the works that are thus got up on the
local estates, derive a corresponding advantage from the
employment so created. They certainly get the roads and
drains to make, but they are charged double price for their
land, and their con acre. The bargain of the poor tenant
generally includes a pledge, that he shall get work under a
presentment, to enable him to discharge his exorbitant rents.
The object of the grand juror is to improve his own property,
if he have any, or to realize one, if he have it not, at the
GRAND JURY SYSTEM. 175
expense of the wretched people under him. An inspection
of the Quere hooks for the last five years, would satisfactorily
shew to what an extent of undisguised profligacy the johhing
in presentments has been carried. The under sheriff, too,
has his own presentments. The grand jurors dare not refuse
him, for he usually carries in his pocket executions against
the majority of them, which he uses as a convenient instru-
ment to sway their fears. The patronage of the grand jury,
is equally lavished to the detriment of the public service.
Since the Irish revenue establishments have ceased to afford
a refugium for the dependants of the petty great, the offices
in the appointment of the grand juries are made to supply
the deficiency. Patronage is an essential ensign of small
authority in Ireland. The county treasurers, high constables,
and the numerous persons in employment about the jails
and hospitals, are all either relations, servants, fosterers, or
connections of the grand jurors, or those whose behests they
are bound to obey. Those individuals, having by virtue of
their offices, the right of levying fines,* and being sheltered
in their abuses by the favour of the grand jury, inflict with
impunity upon the lower classes, the full measure of oppres-
sion which their privileges enable them to exact. Against
these acts of cruelty there is no appeal. The grand jury will
see no faults in their cherished creatures. The machinery
of these abuses is very complex; it extends even to mem-
bers of parliament, who will rarely make any attempt to
purify the system, knowing that they may suffer for their
patriotism at the next election. Hence it is invariably
found, that previously to a general election, the present-
ments increase, for that is the time when the representatives
of the people are obliged to betray their constituents for the
sake of preserving their seat. As the crisis is now rapidly
approaching when the grand juries may be expected to
trade more largely than usual on the apprehensions of the
* This right, however, must be very limited, although no doubt very
grievous and oppressive to the wretched victims of petty despotism and
cupidity. ED. NOTE.
176 IRELAND,
members, we recommend the administration to cause an
inspection of the Quere books in the different counties.
There is hardly a single measure of inquiry which would
render the government more popular with the people of
Ireland. A curious chapter of Irish discontents may be
opened, by carrying our hint into effect ; and a simple
remedy may be sought out that will ensure the gratitude of
the country, by destroying a prolific source of agitation and
injustice."
EVILS IN THE POLICY BY WHICH SOME IRISH ESTATES
ARE GOVERNED.
First, short leases (say twenty one years or less) upon which
no prudent tenant will expend his capital in permanent im-
provements ; and consequently the progress of improvement
in Ireland is retarded by those leases. Secondly, the want
of moral agents (men totally unconnected with the collection
and enforcement of rents, and who, in reference to the land-
lord, should rather labour to soften, than inflame his demands)
for the purpose of visiting the tenants, and mating faithful
reports to the Lord of the soil, of all peculiar cases of afflic-
tion, of all needful improvements in farms and homesteads,
of all habits of life tending to promote poverty and insolvency,
such as habitual drunkenness, neglect of business, litigation,
frauds and trespass, leading to breaches of the peace, party
quarrels, leading to battery and bloodshed ; robbery, night
walking, and illegal associations, &c., all of which, it is as
much the duty of the landlord to discover, resist, and exter-
minate, as it is his interest to encourage sober and industri-
ous tenants, by moderate rents, good leases, and proper pre-
miums for improvement.
Here the field of moral agency lies plain before the view
of the landed interest it is a moral and not a religious field
and as it now presents to the eye of the philosopher, a scene
of briars and thorns, blended with barrenness and blood, no
time should be lost in filling up the blank which exists, with
men of humanity, well informed in the peculiarities of Ire-
EVILS IN THE POLICY BY WHICH ESTATES, ETC. 177
land, totally unconnected with the enforcement of rents, and
incapable of intermeddling with the religious rights and
liberties of the people.
We know of no landlord who has made this attempt save
the Earl of Farnham ; and although strong objections have
been made to the means which he has adopted, for proselyt-
ing his poor Roman Catholic neighbours to the Protestant
faith, (a question into which we shall not now enter) yet
the comparatively happy circumstances of his Lordship's
tenantry, and the obvious order and comfort which prevail
on his estate in Cavan, clearly prove the utility of a moral
agency under a wise and paternal superintendence; and
without stopping to analyse the springs of proselyting zeal,
(and which in Ireland we believe have operated with an
equally selfish and intolerant activity in both churches ; the
degrees of personal cruelty exercised on these occasions being
however very different, if report is to be credited,) we main-
tain the utility, yea the absolute necessity, of a moral agency
on the estates of Ireland, for the purpose of correcting the
destructive progress of those evils, to which a mere monied
agency (occupied exclusively with what is called the main
chance) is by no means adapted.
The poverty of some Irish tenants contributes largely to
the wealth of an important personage, called the bailiff of
the estate, whose province it is to drive and distrain for
rent. To get a little time for payment, small fees must be
given ; and thus, as in most bankrupt cases, the means taken
to relieve from present distress increase the malady, until
final ruin blow up the whole establishment of the wretched
tenant ; a tragedy that might be prevented by a judicious
and timely exercise of moral power.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOIL OF ULSTER,
Addressed to the rising generation of the Landed Interest in that Province.
The north of Ireland is more eminently distinguished than
any of the provinces of that country, by a bold and striking
variety of hill and dale in the surface of the soil j and to this
N
178 IRELAND,
characteristic distinction, several great mountain tracts (the
prohahle depositaries of great and extensive mineral wealth)
are superadded.
In the other provinces many valuable minerals have been
discovered ; and there are also some great mountain tracts,
(such as those of Cork, Tipperary, and Wicklow,) but still
the North of Ireland, in reference to its soil, surface, and
resources, and still more eminently to the moral and indus-
trious habits of the people, is the province of Ireland best
adapted for commercial enterprise : and should the English
nation be aroused to a due conviction of the value of this
country as a theatre of trade ; in all probability more money
will be embarked in Ulster, by English companies, than in
any other province of the island ; to which the security of
life and property, so perfectly enjoyed here, (and which gives
this province a decided advantage over the other three) will
be no mean inducement.
As a preparation of the public mind for this happy result
of useful inquiry in England, we beg to submit the follow-
ing REFLECTIONS to the Lords of the Ulster soil ; or perhaps
with a better prospect of success, to the rising generation of
their sons ; as it is not easy to turn the attention of old men
from their established modes of thinking and acting, to any
new speculation, however profitable.
REFLECTIONS.
It is impossible to achieve any measure of public good
without proportionate exertion. Without union, patience,
and perseverance, a nation can neither hold what she has
got, recover what she has lost, or make any sensible progress
in the march of trade and science ; and it ought not to be
necessary to remind gentlemen of rank and property, that in
proportion as those national virtues rise or fall, their family
interests float or perish. Look at Scotland, a poor country,
and see the advance which she has made in trade and sci-
ence within the last century, by a course of steady and per-
severing industry. See also the political march of the Irish
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOIL OF ULSTER. 179
Catholics, moving in a body, and joining hand to hand until
they reached the goal to which their sense of justice had
directed them. All history proves that a nation will float or
perish, in proportion to its industry and union, or to its
indolence and discord. See the motto that we have selected
for the title page of this book ; it proves that the same sen-
timent was entertained in the days of Sallust ; and if it were
necessary to select from history a proof of the advantages
resulting to a nation from union and firmness, we would
find it in the success of a handful of united Greeks, against
the invasion of their country by the mighty arm of Persia ;
and in the union of the Irish volunteers in a defensive asso-
ciation, (composed of all sects and parties, save the Society of
Friends,) when Ireland was menaced with a French invasion,
and government were unable to supply that country with a
competent military force. But in reference to a peaceful
and constitutional struggle for the improvement of our coun-
try, we have recourse to military examples, only as a stimulus
to industry, and as a proof of the advantage resulting from
a firm union of the people in the pursuit of a common good ;
for in our excellent constitution there are remedies of moral
force, which, unless on the event of an invasion, render
military struggles needless ; but these remedies are vain ii
they are not called into vigorous exercise by a united and
energetic people ; and hence we address ourselves to the
rising generation of the landed interest of Ulster, having
little confidence in absentee lords, or superannuated men of
pleasure. Had the liberty which is now enjoyed by France,