Sections 7-9: Of Religion; Price of Provisions; Roads, Cars

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SECTION VII.

Of Religion.

THE history of the two religions in Ireland is too generally known to require any detail introductory to the subject. The conflict for two centuries occasioned a scene of devastation and bloodshed, till at last by the arms of king William the decision lest the uncontrolled power in the hands of the protestants. The landed property of the kingdom had been greatly changed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Still more under Cromwell, who parcelled out an immense proportion of the kingdom to the officers of his army, the ancestors of great numbers of the present possessors: the colonels of his regiments left estates which are now eight and ten thousand a year, and I know several gentlemen of two and three thousand pounds a year at present which they inherit from captains in the same service. The last forfeitures were incurred in that war which stripped and banished James II. Upon the whole nineteen twentieths of the kingdom changed hands from catholic to protestant. The lineal descendants of great families, once possessed of vast property, are now to be found all over the kingdom in the lowest situation, working as cottars for the great great grandsons of men, many of whom were of no greater account in England than these poor labourers are at present on that property which was once their own. So entire an overthrow, and change of landed possession, is within the period to be found in scarcely any country in the world. In such great revolutions of property the ruined proprietors have usually been extirpated or banished; but in Ireland the case was otherwise: families were so numerous and so united in clans, that the heir of an estate was always known; and it is a fact, that in most parts of the kingdom the descendants of the old land owners regularly transmit by testamentary deed the memorial of their right to those estates which once belonged to their families. From hence it results that the question of religion has always in Ireland been intimately connected with the right to and possession of the landed property of the kingdom; and has probably received from this source a degree of acrimony, not at all wanting to influence the superstitious prejudices of the human mind.

FLUSHED with success after the victory of the Boyne, and animated with the recollection of recent injuries, it would not have been surprizing. if the triumphant party had exceeded the bounds of moderation towards the catholic, but the amazing circumstance is, that the great category of persecuting laws was not framed during the life of that monarch, who wisely was a friend to toleration: if ever such a system as would crush the minds of a conquered people into a slavish submission was necessary, it must have been under that new, and in many respects weak establishment, when the late conflict might have been an apparent justification: but why such a system should be embraced six or seven years after the death of king William is not so easy to be accounted for.

BY the laws of discovery as they are called:

1. The whole body of roman catholics are absolutely disarmed.

2. They are incapacitated from purchasing land.

3. The entails of their estates are broken, and they gavel among the children.

4. If one child abjures that religion he inherits the whole estate, though he is the youngest.

5. If the son abjures the religion the father has no power over his estate, but becomes a pensioner on it in favour of such son.

6. No catholic can take a lease for more than thirty-one years.¹

7. If the rent of any catholick is less than two-thirds of the full improved value, whoever discovers takes the benefit of the lease.

8. Priests who celebrate mass to be transported, and if they return to be hanged.

9. A catholic having a horse in his possession above the value of five pounds, to forfeit the same to the discoverer.

10. By a construction of lord Hardwick's, they are incapacitated from lending money on mortgage.

THE preceding catalogue is very imperfect, but here is an exhibition of oppression fully sufficient. The great national objects in framing laws against the profession and practice of any religion, may be reduced to three heads, 1st. The propagation of the dominant faith. 2d. Internal security. 3d. National prosperity: the fairest way to judge of the laws of Ireland will be to enquire how far they have answered any or all of these ends.

THAT it is a desirable object in some respects to have a people if not all of one persuasion, at least in good friendship and brotherhood, as to religion is undeniable. Though I think there are reasons against wishing a whole kingdom to profess only one similar faith. It excludes a variety of disquisitions which exercise and animate the talents of mankind; it encourages the priests of the national religion to a relaxation of their studies, their activity and even their morals, and tends to introduce a lazy, wretched, vicious, and ignorant clergy: it is opposition and contrast that sharpen the wits of men. But waving these objections, and considering the question only in a political view, I admit that such a similarity of worship as is followed by laws equal to the whole community to be an advantage, let us therefore examine whether the Irish intolerant ones have had the effect or not.

THAT they have lessened the landed property in the hands of the catholics is certain; their violence could not have had any other effect, but not, however, to such a degree as might have been imagined. There are principles of honour, religion, and ties of blood too powerful for tyrannic laws to overcome, and which have prevented their full effect. I am not convinced that the conversion of the land owners while all the rabble retained their religion, was an advantage to the kingdom. Great possessions gave those landlords an interest in the public welfare; which in emergencies of danger might induce them to use their influence to keep their dependants quiet; but when none are connected with them richer than themselves, the whole party consisting of a poor and half ruined peasantry, and priests almost as poor as themselves, what tie, or what call is there to restrain the dictates of resentment and revenge? At this day the best subjects among the catholics, and many there are very much to be depended on, notwithstanding all their oppressions, are the men of landed property: how impolitick to wish to lessen the number! to be desirous of cutting off two millions of peasantry from every possible connection that can influence their submission. The same observation is applicable to mortgages, and in short to all investments of money within the kingdom. Surely the obedience of a man who has property in the realm is much securer than if all he is worth is in the English or Dutch funds! While property lay exposed to the practices of power, the great body of the people who had been stripped of their all were more enraged than converted: they adhered to the persuasion of their forefathers with the steadiest and most determined zeal; while the priests, actuated by the spirit of a thousand inducements, made proselytes among the common protestants in defiance of every danger. And the great glaring fact yet remains, and is even admitted by the warmest advocates for the laws of discovery that the established religion has not gained upon the catholic in point of numbers, but on the contrary that the latter has been rather on the increase. Public lists have been returned in the several dioceses which confirm this fact; and the intelligence I received on my journey spoke the same language.

AS it is the great body of the common people that form the strength of a country when willing subjects, and its weakness when ill-affected, this fact is a decision of the question: after seventy years undisturbed operation, the system adopted in queen Anne's reign has failed in this great aim, and meets at this day with a more numerous and equally determined body of catholics than it had to oppose when first promulgated. Has not the experience of every age, and every nation, proved that the effect is invariable and universal? Let a religion be what it may, and under whatever circumstances, no system of persecution ever yet had any other effect than to confirm its professors in their tenets, and spread their doctrines instead of restraining them. Thus the great plea of the roman catholic priests, and their merit with their congregations are the dangers they hazard, and the persecutions they suffer for the sake of their faith; arguments that ever had and ever will have weight while human nature continues formed of its present materials.

THE question of internal security is decided almost as soon as named: the submission of the catholics is yet felt to be so much constrained that no idea has been formed, that their being trusted with arms is consistent with the safety of the kingdom, Laws founded in the very spirit of persecution, and receiving an edge in their operation from the unlimited power assumed by the protestant landlord, are strangely calculated to conconciliate the affection, or secure the loyalty of a people. All the emotions of the heart of man revolt at such an idea. It was the opinion of a vast majority of the gentlemen I conversed with on the subject, that no people could be worse affected; all Ireland knows and agrees in the fact, nay, the arguments for a continuation of the laws of discovery are founded on the principle, that the lower classes of the catholics are not to be trusted. Is not this declaring that the disarmed, disgusted multitude, have not lost in their misfortunes the importance of their numbers? The fears of an invasion speak the strength of the oppressed, and the extent of the oppression.

THE disturbances of the white-boys, which lasted ten years in spite of every exertion of legal power, were in many circumstances very remarkable, and in none more so than the surprizing intelligence among the insurgents where ever found: it was universal, and almost instantaneous: the numerous bodies of them, at whatever distance from each other, seemed animated with one soul: and not an instance was known in that long course of time of a single individual betraying the cause; the severest threats, and the most splendid promises of reward had no other effect but to draw closer the bands which connected a multitude, to all appearance so desultory. It was then evident that the iron rod of oppression had been far enough from securing the obedience, or crushing the spirit of the people. And all reflecting men, who consider the value of religious liberty, will with it never may have that effect; will trust in the wisdom of Almighty God for teaching man to respect even those prejudices of his brethren that arc imbibed as sacred rights from their earliest infancy, that by dear bought experience of the futility and ruin of the attempt, the persecuting spirit may cease, and TOLERATION establish that harmony and security which fourscore years experience has told us is not to be purchased at the expence of HUMANITY!

BUT if these exertions of a succession of ignorant legislatures have failed continually in propagating the religion of government, or in adding to the internal security of the kingdom, much more have they failed in the great object of national prosperity. The only considerable manufacture in Ireland which carries in all its parts the appearance of industry is the linen, and it ought never to be forgotten that this is solely confined to the protestant parts of the kingdom; yet we may see from the example of France and other countries that there is nothing in the roman catholic religion itself that is incompatible with manufacturing industry. The poor catholics in the south of Ireland spin wool very generally, but the purchasers of their labour, and the whole worsted trade is in the hands of the quakers of Clonmell, Carrick, Bandon, &c. The fact is, the professors of that religion are under such discouragements that they cannot engage in any trade which requires both industry and capital. If they succeed and make a fortune what are they to do with it! They can neither buy land, nor take a mortgage, nor even fine down the rent of a lease. Where is there a people in the world to be found industrious under such a circumstance? But it seems to be the meaning, wish, and intent of the discovery laws, that none of them should ever be rich. It is the principle of that system that wealthy subjects would be nuisances, and therefore every means is taken to reduce, and keep them to a state of poverty. If this is not the intention of the laws they are the most abominable heap of self contradictions that ever were issued in the world. They are framed in such a manner that no catholic shall have the inducement to become rich. But if in spite of these laws he should accidentally gain wealth, that the whole kingdom should not afford him a possibility of investing it. Take the laws and their execution into one view, and this state of the case is so true, that they actually do not seem to be so much levelled at the religion, as at the property that is found in it. By the law a priest is to be transported and hanged for reading mass, but the mass is very readily left to them with impunity. Let the same priest, however, make a fortune by his mass, and from that moment he is the object of persecution. The domineering aristocracy of five hundred thousand protestants feel the sweets of having two millions of slaves; they have not the least objection to the tenets of that religion which keeps them by the law of the land in subjection: but property and slavery are too incompatible to live together. Hence the special care taken that no such thing should arise among them.

I must be free to own, that when I have heard gentlemen who have favoured the laws as they now stand, urge the dangerous tenets of the church of Rome, quote the cruelties which have disgraced that religion in Ireland, and led them into the common routine of declamation on that side the question; (I cannot call it argument, for I never yet heard any thing that deserved the name) when I have been a witness to such Conversations, I could not but smile to see subscriptions handed about for building a mass house, at the very time that the heaviest vengeance of the law fully executed fell on those who possessed a landed property, or ventured a mortgage upon it.

IT is no superficial view I have taken of this matter in Ireland, and being at Dublin at the time a very trifling part of these laws was agitated in parliament, I attended the debates, with my mind open to conviction, and auditor for the mere purpose of information: I have conversed on the subject with some of the most distinguished characters in the kingdom, and I cannot after all but declare that the scope, purport, and aim of the laws of discovery as executed, are not against the catholic religion which increases under them, but against the industry and property of whoever professes that religion. In vain has it been said, that consequence and power follow property, and that the attack is made in order to wound the doctrine through its property. If such was the intention, I reply, that seventy years experience prove the folly and futility of it. Those laws have crushed all the industry, and wrested most of the property from the catholics; but the religion triumphs; it is thought to increase. Those who have handed about calculations to prove a decrease, admit on the face of them that it will require FOUR THOUSAND YEARS to make converts of the whole, supposing that work to go on in future, as it has in the past time. But the whole pretence is an affront to common sense, for it implies that you will lessen a religion by persecuting it: all history and experience condemn such a proposition.

THE system pursued in Ireland has had no other tendency but that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth of the catholics, and prohibiting their industry within it. The face of the country, every object in short which presents itself to the eye of a traveller, tells him how effectually this has been done. I urge it not as an argument, the whole kingdom speaks it as a fact. We have seen that this conduct has not converted the people to the religion of government; and instead of adding to the internal security of the realm, it has endangered it; if therefore it does not add to the national prosperity, for what purpose but that of private tyranny could it have been embraced and persisted in? Mistaken ideas of private interest account for the actions of individuals, but what could have influenced the british government to permit a system which must inevitably prevent the island from ever becoming of the importance which nature intended.

RELATIVE to the national welfare it must appear extremely evident to the unprejudiced, that an aristocracy of five hundred thousand protestants, crushing the industry of two millions of poor catholics, can never advance the public interest. Secure the industry of your people, and leave their religion to itself. It is their hands, not their faith, you want; but do not tie these behind them, and then ask why they are not better employed. How is agriculture to flourish, manufactures to be established, or commerce to extend in a dependant country labouring under great disadvantages, if the united capitals, industry, activity and attention of the whole community, be not employed for such purposes? When the territory of an island lies in such a wretched state, that though blessed with a better soil it yields, on comparison with England, as only 8 to 11: when manufactures are of so sickly a growth as to be confined almost to one province, and when trade is known to exist only by the ships of other countries appearing in the harbours, while a kingdom is in such a situation, is it wisdom to persist in a system which has no other effect than to clog, defeat, or exterminate the capital and industry of four- fifths of the inhabitants! Surely the gentlemen of that country, when they complain of restricted commerce, and the remittance of the rentals of the absentees to England, cannot be thought serious in lamenting the situation of their country, while they continue wedded to that internal ruin which is the work of their own hands, and the favourite child of their most active exertions. Complain not of restrictions while you yourselves inforce the most enormous restriction; for what are the body of absentees when compared with the absence of industry and wealth from the immense mass of two millions of subjects. I should be well founded in the assertion that both these evils, great and acknowledged as they are, are trifles when compared with the poverty and debility which result from the oppression of the roman catholics. Encourage the industry of those two millions of idle people, and the wealth arising from it, will make ample amends for most of the evils complained of in Ireland. This remedy is in your hands; you have no rivals to fear; no ministers to oppose you.

THINK of the loss to Ireland of so many catholics of small property, resorting to the armies of France, Spain, Sardinia, and Austria, for employment. Can it be imagined, that they would be so ready to leave their own country, if they could stay in it with any prospect of promotion, successful industry, or even liberal protection? It is known they would not; and that under a different system, instead of adding strength to the enemies of this empire, they would be among the foremost to enrich and defend it.

UPON the general question it has been asserted by the friends of the law, that gentlemen in England are apt very much to mistake the point from being ignorant of Irish popery, which from the ignorance of the people, is more bigoted than any thing known in the sister kingdom; also that the papists in England are not claimants of all the landed property, which is the case in Ireland.

BOTH these observations are too shallow to bear the least examination; oppression has reduced the major part of the Irish catholics to a poor ignorant rabble; you have made them ignorant, and then it is cried your ignorance is a reason for keeping you so; you shall live and remain, and die in ignorance, for you are too wretched to be enlightened. Take it as argument, or humanity, it is of a most precious kind. In all other parts of Europe the catholic religion has grown mild and even tolerant; a softer humanity is seen diffused in those countries, once the most bigoted; Spain and Portugal are no longer what they were. Had property taken its natural course in Ireland, the religion of the catholics there would have improved with that of their neighbours. Ignorance is the child of poverty, and you cannot expect the modern improvements, which have resulted from disseminated industry and wealth, should spread among a sect, whose property you have detached, and whose industry you have crushed: to stigmatize them with ignorance and bigotry, therefore, is to reproach them with the evils which your own conduct has entailed; it is to bury them in darkness, and vilify them because they are not enlightened.

BUT they claim your estates; they do so, as steadily at this moment as they did fourscore years ago; your system therefore has utterly failed even in this respect. Has the rod of oppression obliterated the memory or tradition of better days? Has severity conciliated the forgiveness of past, perhaps necessary injuries? Would protection, favour, and encouragement add fresh stings to their resentments? None can assert it. Ample experience ought to have convinced you, that the harshness of the law has not annihilated a single claim; if claims could have restored their estates, they would have regained them before now: but here, as I shewed before, the laws have weakened instead of strengthening the protestant interest; had a milder system encouraged their industry and property, they would have had something to lose, and would, with an enemy in the land, have thought twice before they joined him; in such a case whatever they had got would be endangered, and the hope of being reinstated in antient possessions, being distant and hazardous, present advantage might have induced them not only to be quiet, but to have defended the government, under whose humanity they found protection and happiness. Compare such a situation with the present, and then determine whether the system you have persisted in has added a jot to the security of your possessions.

BUT let me ask, if these catholic claims, on the landed property, were not full as strong an argument in the reign of King William as they are at present? The moment of conflict was then but just decided; if ever rancour and danger could arise from them, that certainly was the season of apprehension: but it is curious to observe, that that wise monarch would permit few acts to pass to oppress the catholics. It was not until the reign of Anne, that the great system of oppression was opened: if therefore these laws were unnecessary from the revolution to the death of King William, and the experience of that reign tells us they were, most certainly they cannot be so at present.

THE enlightened spirit of TOLERATION, so well understood and practised in the greatest part of Europe, is making progress every day, save in Ireland alone: while the protestant religion enjoys peace and protection in catholic countries; why should a nation, in all other respects so generous and liberal as the Irish, refuse at home what they receive and enjoy abroad.

AS the absurdity of the present system can no longer be doubted, the question is, in what degree it should immediately be changed? Would it be prudent directly to arm, and put upon a level with the rest of the community, so large and necessarily, so disgusted a body of the people? Great sudden changes are rarely prudent; old habits are not immediately laid aside; and the temper of men's minds, nursed in ignorance, should have time to open and expand, that they may clearly comprehend their true interests: for this reason the alteration of the laws should be gradual, rather than by one or two repealing clauses, at once to overthrow the whole. But all things considered, there ought not to be a single sessions without doing something in so necessary a work. For instance, in one sessions to give them a power of taking mortgages; another of purchasing lands; in a third, to repeal the abominable premiums on the division of a family against itself, by restoring to parents their rights; in a fourth, mass to be rendered legal; in a fifth, a seminary, to be established by law; for the education of priests; and a bishop to be allowed, with those powers which are necessary for the exercise of the religion; by which means the foreign interest from a priesthood, entirely educated abroad, would be at once cut off. Thus far the most zealous friends to the protestant religion could not object upon any well founded principles. When once the operations of the new system had raised a spirit of industry, and attendant wealth among the lower classes of them, no evil consequences would flow from permitting them the use of arms. Give them an interest in the kingdom, and they will use their arms, not to overturn, but to defend it. Upon first principles, it is a miserable government, which acknowledges itself incapable of retaining men to their obedience that have arms in their hands; and such an one as is to be found in Ireland alone. In like manner I should apprehend that it might be proper to give them a voice in the election of members of parliament; There is great reason to believe, that they will not be treated by gentlemen in the country in the manner they ought to be, until this sort of importance is given them.

LET it in general be remembered, that no country in the world has felt any inconveniencies from the most liberal spirit of toleration: that on the contrary, those are universally acknowledged to be the most prosperous, and the most flourishing, which have governed their subjects on the most tolerating principles. That other countries, which have been actuated by the spirit of bigotry, have continued poor, weak, and helpless: these are circumstances which bear so immediately upon the question, that we may determine, without any hazard of extravagance, that Ireland will never prosper to any great degree until she profits by the example of her neighbours. Let her dismiss her illiberal fears and apprehensions; let her keep pace with the improvement of the age, and with the mild spirit of European manners, let her transfer her anxiety from the faith to the industry of her subjects; let her embrace, cherish, and protect the catholics as good subjects, and they will become such; let her, despising and detesting every species of religious persecution, consider all religions as brethren, employed in one great aim, the wealth, power, and happiness of the general community; let these be the maxims of her policy, and she will no longer complain of poverty and debility, she will be at home prosperous, and abroad formidable.

SECTION VIII.

Price of Provisions.

IN the speculations of modern politicians, so many conclusions have been drawn from the prices of provisions in different countries, and some of them with so much reason, that every one must readily admit a considerable degree of importance to be annexed to such information: with this view, I was as particular in these enquiries as I had been before in my English journies. The prices are as follow upon an average of the whole journey:

	d.
Beef	2½	per lb.
Mutton	2¾
Veal	3½
Pork	2¼
Butter	5¾
A chicken	2½
A turkey	10¾
A goose	8½

IN order for a comparison, I shall add the prices of my English tours.

	Butter.		Mutton.		Beef.		Veal.		Pork.
The Southern Tour, 1767.		6½		4¼		4		3¾
The Northern Tour, 1768.		6		3		3		3		3½
The Eastern Tour, 1770.		6½		3½		3½		3½		3½
Average of the three.		6¼		3½		3½		3¼		3½
Ireland in 1776.		5¾		2¾		2½		3½		2¼

Average of the four meats in England,	3½d.
Ditto in Ireland,	2¾d.
Ireland to England as 11 to 14.

I SHOULD remark, that there has been very little variation in the prices of meat in England since the dates of those journies; the rates in Ireland are higher than I conceived them, and do not from cheapness afford any reason to conclude that country, as far as cattle extends, to be in a state of backwardness. The whole of these minutes, however, concerns the home consumption only, for as to the immense trade in beef and pork (of which hereafter) their rates are considerably under these, as may be supposed from the greatness of the scale, in like manner as the consumption prices in England are near double those of the victualling office.

POULTRY being so extremely cheap is owing to several causes: First , The smallness of the demand; the towns are few, small, and poor; and all gentlemen's families raise a quantity for themselves. Second , The plenty of potatoes upon which they are fed, being vastly greater, and dispensed with less oeconomy than the corn in England, upon which poultry is there reared, Third , The extreme warmth of the cabbins, in which the young broods are nourished. Fourth , The natural produce of white clover, which is much greater than in England, and upon the seeds of which, young turkies, in particular, are advantageously fed. I know a gentleman in England, wbo reared an amazing number of turkies and peachicks the year his lawn was sown with white clover, but the soil being improper it lasted but one year, and he neither before nor after had such success with those broods,

SECTION IX.

Roads—Cars.

FOR a. country so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly. But from this commendation, the turnpikes in general must be excluded, they are as bad as the bye roads are admirable. It is a common complaint, that the tolls of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that disgrace the kingdom.

THE following is the system on which the cross ones are made. Any person wishing to make or mend a road, has it measured by two persons, who swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace. It is described as leading from one market town to another (it matters not in what direction) that it will be a public good, and that it will require such a sum, per perch, of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same; a certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold) with the blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons called overseers, One of whom is usually the person applying for the road, the other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the work, who swears also before the justice the truth of the valuation. The certificate, thus prepared, is given by any person to some one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected they are torn in pieces and no farther notice taken, if granted they are put on the file.

THIS vote of approbation, without any farther form, enables the person, who applied for the presentment, immediately to construct or repair the road in question, which he must do at his own expence, he must finish it by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are bridges, houses of correction, gaols, &c. built and repaired. If a bridge over a river, which parts two counties, half is done by one, and the other half by the other county.

THE expence of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the plough land , and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very unequal tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one shilling, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is from three pence to six pence per acre, and amounts of late years, through the whole kingdom, to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.

THE juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road, which amounts to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch, so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments, in order that part may be rejected without the whole. By act of parliament all presentment roads must be twenty-one feet wide at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone or gravel.

As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new roads, where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, &c. it was necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expence of it. Any presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes, and in the mean time persons are appointed to view the line of road demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case. The payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its being laid out; for if any person views, and finds it a manifest imposition and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is cleared up and proved. But this traverse is not common. Any persons are eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry. It follows necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me the great merit of it. Whenever individuals act for the public alone, the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure to be promoted; such is the case of presentment roads; for a few years the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a center, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays, pointing from so many centers, met, and then the communication was complete. The original act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here, 1 will go there; I could trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and every where I found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realize my design. What a figure would a person make in England, who should attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has very well observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary. In a few years there will not be a bad road, except turnpikes, in all Ireland.. The money raised for this first and most important of all national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort.

AT first, roads in common with bridges, were paid out of the general treasure of the county, but by a subsequent act, the road tax is now on baronies; each barony pays for its own roads. By another act, juries were enabled to grant presentments of narrow mountain roads, at two shillings and six-pence a perch. By another, they were empowered to grant presentments of footpaths, by the side of roads, to one shilling a perch. By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract, at three halfpence per perch per annum, from the first making of a road, for keeping it in repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment. Arthur French, Esq; of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway, was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into parliament: Ireland, and every traveller that ever visits it, ought, to the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor to the public. Before that time the roads, like those of England, remained impassable, under the miserable police of the six days labour. Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effect absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so laid, as to be borne by the tenant, whose business it is at present to repair.

UPON the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these presentments. In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they take silly freaks of giving none, or very few. Experience having proved from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great, they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might perhaps be adviseable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads. These should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing, the public was indebted for bad roads, when they had paid for good ones. Such a practice would certainly deter many.

AT 11,42,642 acres in the kingdom, one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year amount to just three-pence an acre for the whole territory, a very trifling tax for such an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with that of the post- office,

IT is not to this system singly that Ireland is indebted for the goodness of her roads; another circumstance calls materially for observation, which is the vehicle of carriage: all land-carriage in that kingdom is performed with one-horse cars or carts. Those of the poor people are wretched things, formed with a view to cheapness alone; and the loads they carry on them when working by the day are such as an Englishman would be ashamed to take in a wheelbarrow, yet they suffer their horses to walk so slow with these burthens, that I am confident, work of this sort, done by hire, is five hundred per cent. dearer than in England. Even when they work for themselves, their loads are contemptible, and not equal to what their garrens , miserable as they are, would draw. Cars, however, which work regularly for mills in carrying flour to Dublin, do better; the common load is from six to ten hundred weight, which, considering the horses, is very well; eighteen hundred weight have been often carried thither from Slaine mills. The lowness of the wheels suits a mountainous country; but if there is truth in the mechanic powers, is in general a great disadvantage to the animal. Great numbers of these cars consist only of a flat bottom over the axletree, on which a few sacks, logs, or stones, may be laid, or a little heap of gravel in the center. Others have side-boards, and some baskets fixed. But such an imperfect and miserable machine deserves not a moment's attention; the object of importance arising only from one horse for draught.

SOME gentlemen have carts very well made in respect of strength, but so heavy, as to be almost as faulty as the common car. Others have larger and heavier two-horse carts; and a few have been absurd enough to introduce English waggons. The well-made roads preserving themselves for so many years, is owing to this practice of using one-horse carriages, which is worthy of universal imitation. Notwithstanding the expence bestowed on the turnpikes in England, great numbers of them are in a most wretched state, which will continue while the legislature permits so many horses to be harnessed in one carriage. A proof how little one-horse carriages wear roads, is the method used in Ireland to construct them; they throw up a foundation of earth in the middle of the space from the outsides, on that they immediately form a layer of lime-stone, broken to the size of a turkey's egg; on this a thin scattering of earth to bind the stones together, and over that a coat of gravel, where it is to be had. Their carriages considered, no fault is to be found with this mode, for the road is beautiful and durable, but being all finished at once, with very little or no time for settling, an English waggon would presently cut through the whole, and demolish the road as soon as made, yet it is perfectly durable under cars and coaches.

I have weighed common cars in Ireland, and find the lightest weigh 2 cwt. 2 qrs. 14 lb. good carts for one horse at Mr. O'Neil's, 4 cwt. 2 qrs. 21 lb. and Lord Kingsborough had larger carts from Dublin, with five-feet wheels, which weighed 7C. but these are much too heavy, in the lightness of the machine consists a great part of the merit. A common English waggon with nine-inch wheels from 55 Cwt. to three tons. I built a narrow wheel one in Suffolk for four horses, the weight of which was 25 Cwt.

	Cwt.	qrs.	lb.
Every horse in the Irish car draws,     weight of carriage,	2	2	14
In Mr. O'Neil's carts,	4	2	21
In Lord Kingsborough's,	7	0	0
In a broad wheeled waggon,	7	1	0
In a narrow ditto,	6	1	0

THE extreme lightness of the common car is not to be taken into the question, as it is inapplicable to a profitable load of any thing, except a single block, or sacks. It is absolutely necessary a cart should be capacious enough for a very light but bulky load, such as malt, dust, bran, dry ashes, &c. as well as for hay and straw. The Suffolk waggon for four horses is twelve feet long, four broad, and two deep in the sides and ends, consequently, the body of it contains just 96 cubical feet; the end ladders extended for hay or straw four feet more, and there was a fixed side one, which added two feet to the breadth, consequently the surface on which hay was built, extended just ninety-six square feet. In a great variety of uses, to which I applied that waggon, I found four middling horses, worth about twelve pounds each, would draw a full load of every thing in it; viz. from fifty to sixty hundred weight of hay, twelve quarters of wheat, or fifty-five hundred weight, and the fullage of Bury sheets by computation, judging by the labour of the horses to a much greater weight, perhaps above three tons. I have more than once taken these measures as a guide for a one-horse cart, to give one horse an exact proportion of what four did in that waggon, the dimensions of the cart must be as follow: the body of it must be just four feet long, three feet broad, and two feet deep; the end ladders each one foot, and the side ones six inches. This will be upon a par with the waggon; but I gave the carts the advantage, by end ladders, being each eighteen inches, and the side ones twelve, which made the whole surface thirty-five square feet, four times which is one hundred and forty instead of ninety-six. The weight of these carts complete were from four to five hundred; the wheels five feet high, and the axletree iron, which is essential to a light draft; such carts cost in England, complete and painted, from nine pounds to ten guineas. Whoever tries them will find a horse will draw in them far more than the fourth of the load of a four horse team, or than the eighth of an eight horse one, so he will in a tolerable level country draw a ton.

I have often conversed with the drivers of carriers waggons, as well as with intelligent carters in the service of farmers, and their accounts have united with my own observation, to prove that one horse in eight, and to the amount of half a horse in four, are always absolutely idle, moving on without drawing any weight; a most unremitting attention is necessary even for a partial remedy of this, but with careless drivers the evil is greater; hence, the superiority of horses drawing single, in which mode they cannot fail of performing their share of the work. The expence, trouble and disappointment of an accident, are in proportion to the size of the team; with a broad wheeled waggon and eight horses, they are very great, but with eight carts they are very trifling; if one breaks down, the load and cart are easily distributed among the other seven, and little time lost. When business is carried on by means of single horse carts, every horse in a stable is employed; but with waggons, he who keeps one, two, or three horses, must stand still; and what is to be done with five, six, or seven? It is only four or eight horses that form an exact team; but the great object is the preservation of the roads; to save these the legislature has prescribed wheels, even sixteen inches broad, but all such machines are so enormously heavy, that they are ruinous to those who use them; besides, they form such exact paths for the following teams to walk in, that the hardest road is presently cut into ruts, the most solid materials ground into dust, and every exertion in repairing baffled as fast as tried. Roads, which are made annually at a vast expence, are found almost impassable from the weights carried in waggons. It may be asserted, without exaggeration, that if there were nothing but one-horse carriages in England, half the present highway expence might be saved, and the roads at the same time incomparably better.

IT must be admitted, that the expence of drivers would at first be greater, for a man would not drive above three of them; a man and two boys would do for nine: but why they should not be as well managed here as in Ireland I cannot see; a man there will often, drive five, six, or even eight cars. I have myself seen a single girl drive six. Even in this respect there is an advantage which does not attend waggons, a boy could any where manage one or two, but twenty boys would not be trusted to drive a waggon. Granting, however, that the expence under this head was something greater, still is it vastly more than counterbalanced by the superior advantages stated above, which render it an equal object to individuals and the public.

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¹ By a late law they can now take leases for lives.

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