parties who believe that vital religion is invariably manifested by a conscientious submission to the source of all existence, an upright, pure, and candid disposition of the mind, an unalienable love of truth, and that state of feeling which excludes selfish motives, and seeks its delight in the practice of universal beneficence."

The only alteration that I should suggest is the substitution of some light but useful employment: such as making shoes and clothes for themselves, and the surplus for sale, instead of music, in those schools intended for children who are to provide for themselves through life, as industrious habits cannot be too early inculcated.

LETTER XI.

MY LORD,

THAT the most distant hope of any rational improvements being the result of the Emigration plan to Ireland, must be abandoned experience at least, ought fully to have satisfied the most shallow observer. What does it propose to do? to send the working people out of the country-that part of the community, which has cost the state much to rear to maturity and vigour, the able-bodied, soundminded man, possessing greater spirit of enterprise and industry, than those left behind! These men it is proposed to send away at an expense greater than would be required to set them in motion, to employ them reproductively in their own land, where they could diffuse around them the benefits of their labour, and aid in supporting their aged, infirm, or sick parents, and relatives; for it must be recollected, this class of sufferers are not allowed to emigrate, they are left a burthen on the landed interest of Ireland, or to be supported, as chance may direct, a prey to every evil, left to augment the mass of destitution, that every where appals the humane traveller, or sojourner.

It is strange, if emigration was capable of relieving Ireland, that some relief has not been already obtained; the war demand was great, a most extensive voluntary emigration annually to America ;

emigration to England and Scotland, has been annually increasing; emigration to the Van Diemen Land, to the Cape of Good Hope, where all the hopes of the emigrants were soon turned into despair and suffering; and the forcible emigration, or transportation to New South Wales, of thousands annually, who had been driven by want, to attack the security of property in England. All these schemes seem to have failed in thinning the population of Ireland, or in convincing the emigration committee of the utter inefficacy of pursuing the scheme further.

The emigration committee have put forth three ponderous volumes, containing above twelve hundred quarto pages, and have finished their patient investigation, by recommending the "expedient" of a loan of £1,140,000, which in three years would enable the country to export 19,000 families, allowing five persons to each family, that is to say, four thousand the first year, six the second, and nine thousand the third year, total 19,000 families, or 95,000 persons.

Now, really it is quite distressing that such a recommendation should be the result of the laborious and grave deliberations of a committee of senators, after the most mature reflections. To shew the utter inefficiency of the proposed measure, we have only to look at the probable increase of a population of seven million: at the rate of only 2 per cent (much under Mr. Malthus's standard,) it will amount to 175,000 a year, or 525,000, by simple accumulation in three years-what kind of legislation would this lead to? However, it is further proposed to continue this plan, progressively increasing the number of families to 197,030, or 985,150 individuals in eight years, which taking the estimated expense at about £60 a family, gives the trifling total of £11,421,800;, this loan to be taken from the consolidated fund,

and to be paid off by a sinking fund of one per cent. Thus, then, it appears the people of these realms to a certain extent, are worth twelve pounds less than, what shall I say? nothing; for we are recommended to pay twelve pounds per head for shipping them off any where. The black slave in the West Indies is worth at least £40, add to this the £12, which will shew us by Emigration arithmetic, that the white is worth £52 less than the black. What a condition then, are the people of these realms reduced to! Am I speaking of Britons? Can it be possible! Is this the prosperity, the honour and glory which his Majesty's late ministers so eternally boasted of having brought the country to? Yes, yes it is; this is the result of penal laws, of the policy of governing Ireland by the division of her people; and of the commercial system of monopolies, bounties, restrictions, and prohibitions. The present ministers have much to do, and much to undo; but they must have nothing to do with the exportation of the people; it will be better, far better, to export the wealth they are capable of producing in Ireland, even if they do require a tenth part of the sum proposed by the emigration committee to give the impetus, to enable them to make that which is generally the most difficult, a beginning.

Let us suppose that one third of this £1,140,000 be expended in Ireland one year, say £380,000, allowing £20,000 to build and establish each manufactory, thus could nineteen such, be formed each year; that is, supposing £20,000 to be necessary for each different species of factory, which could not be the case, as some would require more; many much less. Let this expenditure be confined to three counties each year, and I will beg to ask any gentlemen of that committee, what would probably be the permanent advantages to the landed interest of each county, if £126,000 were expended in making per

manent manufacturing establishments, thus providing for the reproductive employment of thousands of the people, raising them in the scale of consumers, promoting trade, employing merchants, shopkeepers, clerks, builders, carpenters, tailors, weavers, shoemakers, hatters, and hundreds of other artisans, independently of the commercial advantages that must be consequent on such establishments. This capital I do not propose taking from the consolidated fund, but from actual retrenchment, by doing away with the Irish court or government; and I am sure that the people of Ireland would soon feel the vast advantages that would accrue to the country, by having the money spent in this way, rather than in the way it now is, in all the silly trappings and pageantry of a viceroy's court. The advantages to be gained by this plan, are not only permanent, but progressively, likely to increase, It will take much of the burthen off the agricultural interest, give them better prices for their produce, by finding consumers at their door, saving carriage, commission, and so forth; it will encourage the growth of those things, which are found to be more profitable; the increased wages of labour, will make consumers; for otherwise, the farmers of England would not grow beef, mutton, milk, wool, flax, &c. in preference to raising wheat. To the trading and commercial interest, such a system would be of great and increasing help.

Under all the circumstances, and after the most mature reflection, I am satisfied that if even the retrenchments I have pointed to, will not be pursued by the government, that it would be consonant with sound political economy, to tax the people, as I have before proposed, to prevent the alarming predictions of the emigration report being fulfilled; one of which states that the inevitable consequence of the continually increasing emigration fom Ireland, is to