REGENERATION OF IRELAND. 141 



of weavers whom I some time since employed, I should never 

 have had cause to complain of losses, or to give up the 

 manufacture of linen goods in Ireland, for though during many 

 years, I entrusted the linen-weavers of the North of Ireland 

 with yarns to make into cloth, I never but once had occasion 

 to bring one of their number before a magistrate for selling 

 the yarn which I gave out to be woven, or for not returning it 

 m proper time. I feel very great pleasure in stating this fact 

 as I also did on reading his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant's 

 opinion of the character of the Irish artists and tradespeople, 

 as expressed by him the other day at the meeting of the Royal 

 Dublin Society ; and from my own experience in figured 

 goods, damasks, and drills, I must say, that I fully concur in 

 the estimate formed by Lord Clarendon, f the real aptitude 

 of the people for learning anything taught them ; for on rny 

 obtaining orders for goods from America and England, which 

 were, if possible, generally accompanied with patterns and 

 directions to make alterations in the design, I found amongst 

 our weavers, many men endowed with superior intelligence, 

 not only in connection with their own trade, but on business in 

 general. 



"If, then, the working classes deserve this character 

 and I, after an experience of ten years, during which I 

 have employed them by hundreds, unhesitatingly assert 

 that they do deserve it from mo if even one-fourth of them 

 deserve this character, should they be allowed to live in 

 huts unfit for pigs, without either door or window to 

 lessen the miseries of such an habitation? They deserve 

 better, and they have better in the north; and I can see 

 nothing to prevent the owners of property in the south 

 and west of Ireland from doing as Mr. Sotheron has done, 

 and if they will only make up their minds on the subject 

 those who have escaped from the iron grasp of a set of 

 men who have been the ruin of this country, namely, usurers 



