LOOM EOE LINEN IN IRELAND. 373 



BANQUET TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT IN IRELAND 

 26th NOVEMBER, 1864. 



As we have before us in our daily papers the truly described 

 life-movements of our greatest (self-taught) men, movements 

 made from a determination to conquer every difficulty, and by 

 which they have been raised from poverty to affluence, as 

 in many instances, one particular object takes hold on the mind 

 of inventive genius and his name becomes so associated that 

 it is at last called his " hobby," and I fear it too often follows 

 that those who call it so, may be so uncharitable as to suppose 

 that there is a hollowness for a selfish purpose, I as one who 

 have written for the last nineteen years as a hobby on Flax- 

 culture, and above all the benefit of the power loom, could 

 not but feel delighted to see, that scarcely had Lord 

 Wodehouse got seated as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in the 

 Castle of Dublin, until he, at the first entertainment given 

 by the Lord Mayor and citizens of Dublin, told them at that 

 dinner what I told them thirteen years ago through the press 

 of Ulster, that the power looms, the machines that I was the 

 first man to perfect and introduce into Belfast in 1838, are 

 now the only hope for Ireland's regeneration, the only means 

 whereby the wages of the labourer, 8d. per day, can be 

 advanced to a comparison with this great, justice-loving 

 country, where no man is expected to exist on such scanty, 

 miserable, and unjust wages. I, feeling the honour of 

 such an advocate of my views, in the person of the Viceroy, 

 addressed his Excellency with such evidence by my published 

 letters in the Banner of Ulster as I thought could not fail to 

 show him that my unpaid labours through the press (thirteen 

 years ago) deserved his consideration, and as I saw in the 

 London Telegraph on the 26th November, 1864, that his 



