1829.] Protestant Colonies of Ireland. 417 



This system of extorting high rents, is effected by either attorney 

 agents, who not merely exact those rents, but availing themselves of the 

 misery of the wretched peasantry, involve them in litigation ; or by land 

 jobbers, or imdertakers who take land to sub-let to the poor. 



This lias been the origin of the Rockite system, of the Levellers and 

 Whiteboys, in I76O. — P'ide Gordon's History of Ireland, vol. 2. pp. 

 240-1 — in 17<^3 and 17t)4; of the Hearts of Steel — Campbell's Survey 

 of Ireland, p. 304; of the Night Boys, in 178G. — Gordon's History of 

 Ireland, vol. 2, pp. 299-300 ; of the insurrection in Limerick. — llde 

 Right Hon. Charles Grant's Speech, April 22, 1822, who says, that 

 " the commotions that have for the last sixty years desolated Ireland, 

 have all sprung from local oppression ;" and Mr. Nimmo, a Scotchman, 

 and scientific engineer, who for eleven years has resided in Ireland, and 

 employed the people in public works in almost every district of tliat 

 country, says, in his evidence on the state of Ireland, p. 290 : " The 

 landlord in Ireland has greater power than in any other state I 

 know ; he is not bound to protect the tenant in case of distress or star- 

 vation, as he is in England, or in countrys such as Livonia and Germany, 

 Avhere they cultivate the land by predial slaves, or as the negro slaves in 

 the West Indies." 



In 1821, the landlords of Ireland exported six million's Avorth of food 

 while the people were starving, and England subscribing 300,000/. for 

 their relief; in 182(3, 60,000 persons (a third of the population of the 

 city of Dublin) passed through the fever hospitals. ]\Iessrs. Foster, 

 Dickson, and Strickland, have distinctly stated before the Emigration 

 Committee, that the rent exacted in the western districts cannot be paid 

 out of the land, but is in general paid by money made in England by the 

 migrating peasantry. 



The Irish, like the Israelites of old, have multiplied by misery ; yet, in 

 defiance of the petition of the people reiterating this statement, Mr. G. 

 R. Dawson says that Ireland is improving. " The amount of the exports 

 and imports of Ireland have increased," says this legislator ; but if he had 

 referred to tlieir nature, he would have found that the exports of Irish 

 cattle and butter have increased, whereby the labour of the people has 

 been diminished, indicating in a ratio to the increase of population their 

 increase of misery, for nearly the whole of this goes to pay the rents 

 raised in proportion, or the arrears due. 



The imports of English manufacture, partly made up by the poors-rate, 

 indicate the decline of Irish manufacture ; and existing facts bear out this 

 assertion. The linen trade is rapidly declining in Ireland; for the 

 import duty upon linen yarn from the Baltic (three-fourths of that manu- 

 facture where food is at the rate of ten shillings an acre) is but half a 

 farthing a pound, whilst the import duty upon but one half of the Eng- 

 lish staple is l.v. 3(/. a pound on cotton twist, and 1*. 'Jd. on woollen 

 yam. The silk and tabinet trade of Dublin, which once maintained a 

 most comfortable and res])cctable body of artisans, are utterly destroyed ; 

 and since the re])eal of the transit dvities, thirty of the most eminent 

 woollen manufacturers in tliat city have been ruined. Domestic manu- 

 facture is no more. As Air. Dawson remarks, the comfortable stuff 

 gown, the home manufacture of the female peasant, is supplanted l)y the 

 idle and meretricious calico of ]\Ianche.ster. I liave examined the bank- 

 rupt and insolvent calendar of Dublin, which brands with folly the 

 awertion that Ireland is improving. It is most certain, that high I'ents 



M.M. New Seriex.— Vol. Vlll. No. 46. 3 H 



