66 ON THE STATE OP IRELAND. [BOOK I. 



crime by despair, or revenge against those who take the 

 leases of the farms from which they have been ejected. 

 The peasantry are now quiet, from the persuasion that the 

 Government have come to the determination of investi- 

 gating the causes of their distress. The tenants see well 

 enough that the general spirit of the landlords is to drive 

 them from their lands ; but no person, acquainted with 

 the feelings of the people, would dare to take lands in 

 Galmoy over the heads of the present possessors. 



In the barony of Gowran, a magistrate declared his opi- 

 nion, that almost all the crimes committed in this district 

 are connected with tithes or the taking of land ; that to be 

 or not to be dispossessed, is to the peasants an affair of 

 life or death. 



In the barony of Philipstown, the witnesses assert that 

 many of the crimes committed in the neighbourhood are 

 connected with the taking of land that there is a feeling 

 among the people that no man has a right to come in on 

 the land of another that when a crime is committed, the 

 public voice accuses the person who has been dispossessed 

 of his farm ; but the ejected tenant suffers so much in many 

 cases, that there is a very general feeling in favour of those 

 dispossessed. An instance was mentioned of a farmer, 

 who, having been dispossessed, hired a soldier to shoot the 

 man who took his farm ; the soldier did so, and afterwards 

 turned king's evidence, and the farmer was hanged. 



No one in this barony dares to take the farm of a man 

 who has been ejected. 



In the barony of Dundalk it was deposed, that all the 

 crimes are caused by the taking of land and the payment 

 of tithes. 



In the barony of Maryborough, the eagerness to obtain 



