quantities of cloths would certainly have gone out of both islands to the foreign
markets, and the individual profit would have been consequently abated,



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 15
DIALOGUE.

English Reader. May I take the liberty of asking, what
end do you propose to yourself by the publication of this
tour ?

Author. To lead as many of the people of your country as

yet the consumption would thereon be wonderfully increased, as is generally
the case where an article of this nature is cheap and plentiful. Again, it
was supposed that all the woollen manufacture that was checked in Ireland,
would then be necessarily carried on in England. This conclusion was equally
erroneous; Ireland excelled in particular stufl's, which she was enabled to
make and sell in a state and at prices that England never could arrive at in
the foreign markets ; the consequence was, that the latter country, which,
in conjunction with Ireland, would have disheartened other nations from
attempting this staple commodity, was ultimately undersold by the industry
of foreign nations, who then found they could excel and undersell her in
their own emporia. Nor was this all the evil consequence even to England.
It was her real interest to have encouraged the increase of riches in Ireland,
not only as the latter country would then have been enabled to contribute
more to its own support, and been the less charge to the English revenue ;
but as, in point of fact, almost the whole of her money found its way into
English coffers. To what a state, however, did this superadded lash of
policy reduce our poor country. Her cattle were no longer to be exported
her woollen manufacture was prohibited heavy impositions were laid on
her tallow, her leather, and her corn the tonnage and poundage were
doubled on her linen ! In fact, she could hardly export materials for the
English manufacturer, as wool, flax, skins, hides, rape-seed, &c. and while
even that little trade was carried on in English ships, she herself was sup-
plied with almost every commodity from England, and her estates were
mortgaged at 10 per cent to Englishmen. A pamphlet of the day states,
that there were in 1697 8, in the city and suburbs of Dublin alone, 12,000
families, and throughout the nation 50,000, who were bred to trades con-
nected with the manufacture of wool, and " who could no more get their
bread in the linen manufacture, than a London tailor could by shoe-
making."

" 1791. By an act of this year, the exportation of woollen cloths from
Ireland, except from certain ports to certain ports of England, was wholly
prohibited.

" 1702. Sir Richard Cox was summoned to England to advise Her Ma-
jesty, amongst other matters, as to which manufacture, linen or woollen,
it would be most the interest of England to encourage in Ireland ; when he
delivered his opinion, " that it was the interest of England to encourage
the woollen manufacture in Ireland, in its coarse branches, as this would
prevent the wool being carried to French manufacturers, and would not
interfere with the manufacture of England ; and that he thought it the most
impolitic step ever taken by England, to prohibit the whole exportation of



16 IRELAND,

shall read this book, (and particularly those of the com-
mercial interest to which you belong) to think justly con-
cerning Ireland, by becoming accurately acquainted with
its real history.

E. R. A good and necessary end ; but is a tour through a
few counties (replete, as we may suppose, with travelling
incidents, as tours usually are) the proper sort of publication
for enlightening the people of England upon the state of
your country ?

A. The sort of tour of which you speak, (and some such
have been published by men of your country, who knew
Ireland only through the casualties of stage-coach and
posting excursions !) is perhaps better calculated to mislead
than to enlighten England, upon the complex causes by
which Ireland has been made a proverb to the world ; and
therefore it shall be my aim, in the composition of this
book, to attach to the specimens of the counties which
I visited in 1830, such views of the political and moral

woollen manufacture from Ireland." Lord Godolphin, however, overruled
his arguments, by the impossibility of contending with the prejudices of the
British people !

" The fatal consequences of the act of William soon manifested them-
selves. The poor of Ireland became destitute of support ; families before
comfortable were reduced to beggary, and all of the manufacturing class
that had any capital fled to the continent ; and as the Flemings had here-
tofore done, when persecuted by the Duke of Alva, so these too contributed
to the extension of the wool trade in every land of their exile. The looms of
Montdidre, Abbeville, Turcoin, Tournay, Leyden, &c. were fed with Irish
wool, and, to a certain extent, worked by Irish artizans. Lisle alone is
said to have found employment for a thousand looms. Another necessary
consequence of the prohibition was a contraband traffic of the wool thus
injuriously carried to be worked abroad. About the year 1704, a Mr. Rothe,
of Youghal, brought 13 ships laden with Irish wool into Nantz ; and in 1705,
several Irishmen, who were taken by Sir George Byng in a French man-of-
war, confessed, on examination, a constant trade and practice of exporting
wool to France. This evasion became so open, that in 17-20 several petitions
were sent up, complaining of it to the English Parliament." These extracts
will assist to shew the nature of the policy by which Ireland has been
governed by England, since she came under the control and direction of
that country. Of the effects we need say nothing they are written in
legible characters of decay upon the face of the whole island.



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 17

state of Ireland generally, as may lead the reader to think
seriously of the means by which the leaven of the old
system of law and government may be safely exuded ; the
healthful principle of moral life resuscitated and brought
into action ; the people made prosperous and happy by pro-
fitable employment and wise institutions of charity; the
laws respected for their justice and equity ; the government
for its wisdom and vigor ; and the wealth and power of the
state promoted, by a faithful development of the resources
of the country, through a local parliament, (or a competent
substitute for it) established upon the soil of Ireland for that
special purpose.

E. R. I beg pardon for interrupting you ; these are cer-
tainly important objects, but would not a statistical and
geological report of the counties through which you travelled
in 1830, prove more eminently calculated to draw the atten-
tion of England to the great commercial capabilities of your
country, than a political tour, or even a commercial survey,
resting upon partial observation, and the information of
certain inhabitants, upon the accuracy of whose reports you
could by no means place implicit reliance ?

A. No man can feel more sensibly than I do the force of
your last observations, which bear no just relation, however,
to those important sections of the work that treat on the
political and moral state of Ireland; and for which the
author was, happily, quite independent of those imperfect
sources of information to which you have shrewdly alluded.
The more deeply and severely these sections of the work
shall be scrutinized, the more important to the future inter-
ests of England they will appear; and in relation to the
geological and statistical developments of which you speak ;
of these and other works of public utility, it may be justly
said, that the labourer's power of doing good is limited by
the means which he possesses ; and that my means in these
departments of research were so extremely circumscribed,
that I found it physically impossible to accomplish, even
the limited measure of good that I had contemplated when






18 IRELAND,

I entered upon this tour. A statistical and geological sur-
vey of the counties which I visited in 1830, would require a
course of time, and a union of funds and talents, which
I could not personally command. It was a debt due by the
lords of the soil to their own properties, and might have
been executed by mining engineers and other men of
science, under their direction, at an expense of trifling
consequence to them; but though trifling to the rank and
property of a large district of country, still of such mag-
nitude in its aggregate amount, as would render it totally
impossible for any individual of limited resources to achieve
it; and hence, having no geological map of those counties
to consult, and thrown, by the absence of this desideratum,
upon my own slender talents and limited exertions for a
collection of the elements of their future wealth, I found the
task too gigantic for my feeble grasp, and was compelled to
rest contented with the humble office of a precursor to some
greater power, to whose authority and resources the natural
history of the country could be made to bow. The few
fragments, however, of their natural wealth (combined with
many distinguished specimens of artificial improvement)
which I have been able to collect, will, I trust, prove useful
in awakening a spirit of enquiiy into the deep and various
resources of this interesting district; and therefore I shall
proceed to collect and combine those fragments under their
respective heads, when I have answered such farther ques-
tions as you may think proper to propose to me.

E. R. I am satisfied with the reasons you have given for
your inability to gratify my wishes to the whole extent, on
the great subject of your mineral wealth, and other materiae
which your country possesses for manufactures and com-
merce. I am aware that these can only be brought to bear
upon the prosperity of a country, and upon the wealth of a
state, under the protecting shade of liberal laws and a wise
government ; and I must confess that on the page of your
living history, proofs of criminal negligence or corrupt prin-
ciple are too plainly inscribed, to be misconstrued or trans-



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 19

ferred to inferior causes ; but still, as on political subjects
there will always be much difference of opinion, while on the
sound policy of finding employment for the people by an
improvement of their own native resources, all reasonable
men are heartily agreed ; hence I cannot but wish that such
a strong and concise report of your statistical and geological
resources had been executed, as would place before the eye
of the English reader, pure from political infusions, and from
all objects of minor interest, the cardinal features of your
country's wealth. The maps and volumes hitherto published
upon Ireland, have been too numerous; some of them
have dwelt too much upon the minutiae of that country,
and consequently have been too voluminous for com-
mercial men. One compendium of the whole would su-
persede them, and that compendium is now much wanted.
All men of science who have explored your country ac-
knowledge, that in its soil and other natural resources, it is
one of the richest countries in Europe, and has decided ad-
vantages over every other part of the British islands. It
opens upon the atlantic ocean on the west, and thus com-
mands an easy communication with the new world. On the
east, the English channel, with the aid of a steam naviga-
tion, renders the English market accessible to its produce in
a few hours. Its coast abounds with noble harbours, its
valleys with spacious lakes, and its mountains with rapid
rivers with numerous falls for mills. Its soil is fertile beyond
that of most countries : it abounds with all sorts of minerals
and fossils applicable to trade and domestic convenience.
Its inhabitants are distinguished by their wit, genius, and
personal bravery. Why then are they divided ? Why is it
that they do not coalesce and become one people ? Why is
so large a proportion of their peasantry reducible into three
classes, the famished, the mendicant, and the criminal inha-
bitants of the land ? Why are the artizans of your most po-
pulous cities destitute of employment, and perishing for want
of bread ? Why do more than half the population of your
capital appear in the garb of the most abject beggars, and a



20 IRELAND,

large proportion of its parishes exhibit the appearance of a
spacious lazaretto ? Something must be radically wrong in
the whole state of society in your country ; or the religion
and laws by which that state of society is produced and per-
petuated, must be lamentably vicious point these out to me
with the pen of a diamond ; and if to the evils you will add
the remedies, your book will be worth reading, although its
statistical and geological information may be poor and slender,
its style plain and unpolished, its tale of distress as artless as
that of Parson Adams or Dr. Syntax, and its subject matter
as curious and diversified, as that of "Robinson Crusoe," or
" The Adventures of a Guinea."

A. On taking a cursory view of the task which you require
me to execute (and in language that renders doubtful whether
Heraclitus or Democritus shall bear away the palm of victory
from Patience, bending serenely sorrowful over the tomb of
a country that was once a nursery for heroes, and a school
for kings,) it does not at first sight appear to be one of
extreme difficulty ; but on farther consideration, it is found
to involve centuries of misrule and plunder, far beyond the
limits of a pocket volume. To do justice to such a subject
would force me back through many centuries, to the period
of the English invasion, and to all the succeeding causes of
the conflicting elements of society in Ireland. Besides, on
these subjects there are various and hostile opinions ; some
regarding the Reformation (out of which the religious divi-
sions of the country, and the plunder of the poor and the
Roman Irish Church proceeded) as a great public curse;
while others regard it as a great public blessing. I myself
am convinced that the Reformation laid the foundations of
religious liberty in Europe, and am of opinion that the
conquest of Ireland by England (in putting an end to the
feuds and divisions of its Kings, and uniting its petty prin-
cipalities in one country, under one crown of sufficient
power to protect it,) was a great and important advantage
to the former country, notwithstanding all the evils which
followed that conquest in its train ; but then, I have not



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 21

forgotten, that I am descended from an English family,
and am a protestant by birth and education; and conse-
quently that my feelings are not exactly the same as those
of a Roman Catholic born in the same country, although
I can safely assert, that I have suffered persecutions and
privations, in person, property, and liberty, to which I
never saw a Roman Catholic subjected in Ireland under
the influence of the penal laws; and hence, by my own
experience, I was instructed to believe, that the recently
abolished remnant of those laws, was no otherwise an
instrument of punishment to Roman Catholics, than as it
presented an obstacle to their attainment of power in the
state, from which I felt myself as effectually excluded as
any Roman Catholic whatsoever, by the honest and impar-
tial course, which my duty to my country and my conscience
compelled me to pursue; and by the impediments which
the expenses of the law had opposed to justice, in reference
to the fortunes of my family.

But although I had thus brought into the world with me,
from my school and cradle, feelings peculiar to an Irish
protestant, forced into perpetual collision with elements
hostile to his cloth and creed, yet, as I advanced in life, and
dipped into the polluted source from whence those elements
of discord derived their birth, I finally became too well
acquainted with the conduct of England to this country to
imagine, that because the Reformation laid the foundations
of free enquiry, and consequently of religious liberty in
Europe, that therefore England presented this valuable
boon to Ireland without a stain ; or that because an extinc-
tion of the ancient princely feuds and petty principalities of
Ireland, by the English conquest, was an incalculable benefit
to this latter country, that therefore England governed that
country with a fair and judicious hand. The reverse of
all this I at length discovered to be the fact, but not indeed
until I was far advanced in life, and had studied the genuine
history of my country's wrongs with impartiality and atten-
tion. Previous to this I had, from my very infancy, and



22 IRELAND,

until I had nearly attained the age of 40 years, been brought
into perpetual collision with the elements of hatred to the
Sassenagh and his religion, without knowing that any other
cause existed, save that innate spirit of persecution and
hatred of religious freedom, which I then believed, and still
believe to be, the cardinal mark of an Antichristian church.
However, on devoting my attention a little more particularly
to the political history of Ireland, and tracing the source of
the penal laws through rivers of blood and over mountains of
human carnage, to the confiscation of property and the pos-
session of power in the land, I at length discovered that for
the too long cherished hatred of the Sassenagh and his creed,
there were other and deeper causes, than the narrow and in-
tolerant spirit of the church of Rome. Thus was I led by
degrees to a new and more perfect discover)' of the source of
our divisions, than those which I had entertained in early
life ; and the result was, an immovable conviction, that for
the malignant scoff, and the scowling spirit of ill concealed
revenge, which once met the fearless advocate of the protes-
tant faith at every corner, he was still more deeply indebted
to English policy, jealousy, and injustice, than even to the
characteristic despotism and intolerance of Rome. This was
the result of a fair and fearless examination of the bearings
of this great question ; and from the moment that my under-
standing became enlightened upon this subject, my con-
science and my actions have kept pace with it (as the works
which I have since published clearly prove) ; and although I
remain to be a true and zealous protestant, disliking popery
and persecution in all churches, and defending the right
of every man to the enjoyment of civil and religious free-
dom, to its utmost possible extent; yet the narrow and
mistaken (though honest) conceptions of my early life have
fled ; for I now know, not only the effects of the English and
Romish systems, thus harmoniously working (for these I had
alway painfully felt), but also the causes which produced
them, and which are not even now (in the 19th century, and



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 23

the 7th of England's nominal dominion) more than half
removed.

To develop these causes with that accuracy and superiority
to prejudice, hy which alone the historian's pen should be
guided, would force me back, as I have already observed,
through many centuries of misrule and plunder, to the
period of the English invasion ; but as the limits of this
book will not permit me to travel in retrograde motion, to
that point of time when Dermod, King of Leinster, sold this
country to Henry II., and Henry contracted with Pope
Adrian IV. for the privilege of reducing the Irish Bull to
the English and Roman yoke. As I cannot travel so far
back as this, in order to satisfy your inquiry concerning the
principal roots from whence the conflicting elements of Irish
society arose, I shall endeavour to supply this defect by tak-
ing my stand upon an important period of our modern
history, (and one of much more importance to us than
the annals of the English invasion,) namely, that in
which George III. recommended his faithful Commons
of Ireland to take into consideration the sufferings of his
Irish Roman Catholic subjects, in order to a repeal of the
penal laws by which they were oppressed. Here the greatest
blunder into which England has fallen since the conquest of
this country, was committed by the British government.
That government had ample proof (in the history of the
English Dissenters and Irish Catholics) that persecutions of
the secular power, could neither exterminate the principles
nor the professors of any religion (for Popery still continues
in England and Protestantism in France) ; and they ought to
have known that if the extinction of the Catholic religion in
Ireland was what they sought to accomplish, they took the
very worst method of producing that effect; while the only one
that could reconcile an Irish Catholic population to the reli-
gion and government of their conquerers, was composed of
two parts aliberation of the people from all penal restrictions
on the score of their religion, and an independent provision



24 IRELAND,

for their clergy, as a compensation for the property they had
lost. This, when George III. ascended the throne, would,
in all probability have been accepted by the Catholic clergy
of Ireland (who were then in a very degraded state) as a
gracious boon ; but his Majesty's advisers, either did not see
the policy of this measure ; or being determined to govern
Ireland by the maxim " divide et impera," they rejected it ;
and in either case, were they not weak or wicked governors,
totally unfit to guide the councils of this divided nation ?*
The misfortune however is, that such governors as these

* It is worthy of observation that, if Popery be an evil, Ireland is indebted
to England for that scourge ! Prior to the English invasion, thelrish church
appears to have been independent of the See of Rome. Henry II. received
the gift of Ireland from his countryman, Nicholas Breakspear, then Pope
Adrian IV., on the express condition that he should reduce it to the Roman
yoke, and impose the tax of Peter pence upon all householders, as a tribute
of obedience and a tie of filiation to the Roman See. The Irish clergy are
said to have long protested against the ambitious and arbitrary views of the
See of Rome (which had been tampering with them by divers instruments) ;
but after the arrival of Henry their remonstrances were to no purpose ; the
English invader forced Popery down their throats at the point of the bayonet ;
and when his pious namesake, Harry VIII. thought to make the men of
Ireland disgorge the pill which his predecessor had administered, he found
it so deeply seated in the Irish constitution, and so effectually incorporated
with its blood, that no efforts of his political stomach pump, however violent,
could force them to discharge it. All the succeeding Reformers in power
pursued the same course (such ignorant Empirics were they) ; and to aid the
operations of their stomach pump, they not only opened all the offices of the
Irish church to the priests of the Reformation, but followed with the most
bloody and inhuman penalties of their law, all those who remained faithful
to those Popish legends, and that Popish usurpation of authority, which
England herself had forced upon Ireland with the progress of her arms.

The Irish, however, were not a people to be thus kicked into a religion
and kicked out of it at the sole will and pleasure of their conquerers. When
united to a church by education, and by faith in the supposed divinity of its
doctrines and ministers, no operations of human cruelty, no blandishments
of human power, no semblance even of sound reason, could induce them to
forsake it (as the Apostles of the second reformation now well know.) The
Irish people are still attached to their church and to their chiefs. The
vnjust and arbitrary acts of England have riicled that attachment , and the hosti-
lity to her name which these acts have engendered, will only decline with
the growth of a liberal policy, rapidly advancing the knowledge, wealth, and
commercial interests of this injured country ; and in a ratio with the same



REVIEW OF HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATE. 25

are frequently permitted to enjoy power, property and plunder,
even to the end of life ; while the nations they have ruined
are forced to writhe under the lash of their infernal policy,
long after the authors of their miseiy have been dead and
d d ! The King's advisers of that day were, no doubt,
quite certain, that in withholding a provision from the Ca-
tholic clergy, and in governing Ireland by their own favour-
ites, they were strengthening the power of the crown and the