Population of Ireland. 351 



Such is the general diffusion of this ruinous 

 practice, that to correct it seems, if not wholly 

 impossible, at present impracticable, as it will 

 not be considered incumbent on those in pos- 

 session to attempt a remedy which would de- 

 mand inconvenient sacrifices, for the sole pro- 

 spective benefit of successors. The general in- 

 terest and happiness of a country placed in so 

 irretrievable a predicament, and which is daily 

 becoming worse, cannot fail to excite the most 

 lively apprehension for the continuance of its 

 tranquillity. The spirits of six millions of peo- 

 ple sustained by hope alone, while exercising 

 the most virtuous patience under the severest 

 privations, without the means of employing 

 themselves or of obtaining employment from 

 others, have ample leisure to brood over the 

 misery they endure, and, if it were requisite, 

 to magnify every grievance they are compelled 

 to suffer. It is not surely in human nature to 

 to be ever content under such circumstances, 

 aggravated as they are by the want of those es- 

 sentials ordained to secure the public peace in 

 the fair and impartial distribution of justice. 

 The benefits to which the laborer is entitled 

 from the protection of the law, come not within 

 tlu- \kw of his pretensions : the daily execution 

 of it by the military is familiar to his observation, 



