PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. IN introducing to the Reader the following account of Captain Rock, it may be as well that I should also give him some account of myself, and of the manner in which the Manuscript of the Captain came into my possession. I little thought, at one time of my life, that I ever should be induced to visit Ireland. Often, indeed, had I declared-so great was my horror of that country-that "I would just as soon trust my person among those savages of the Andamans, who eat up all new-comers, as among the best bred gentlemen of Kerry and Tipperary." The circumstances that at length led me to muster up courage enough for the undertaking, were as follows: where I re In the small town of side, in the West of England, some pious persons succeeded, the year before last, in establishing a Society on the model of the Home Missionary in London ;-with this difference, that the labours of the latter are principally confined to England, while ours were chiefly, if not exclusively, directed to the conversion and illumination of the poor benighted Irish. The Ladies of our Town, in particular, were so impressed with the urgency, of raising that unfortunate race from darkness, that every moment of delay in sending Missionaries among them, appeared, as it were, an age lost to the good cause. "What could be more imperative," they asked, "than the claims of those destitute souls upon us ?-If the County of Worcester, which has hitherto been accounted the Garden of England, is now (as the Report of the Home Missionary assures us) become, for want of preachers, a waste and a howling wilderness,* what must the mountains of Macgillicuddy be?" "The Rev. Timothy East, of Birmingham, states, in a published Sermon, which we earnestly In this temper of our little community, it was my lot to be singled out-as knowing more of Catholic countries than the rest, from having passed six weeks of the preceding summer at Boulogne-to undertake the honourable, but appalling task of Missionary to the South of Ireland. To hint any thing of my personal fears to the Ladies (all Christians as they were), was more than I had the courage to venture. As a brave man once said, to excuse himself for not refusing some coxcomb's challenge, "I might safely trust to the judgment of my own sex, but how should I appear at night before the maids of honour ?" I, accordingly, prepared myself as speedily as I could for the undertaking; and read every book relating to Ireland that was, at all, likely to furnish me with correct notions on the subject." For instance, in every thing relating to political economy and statistics, I consulted Sir recommend to the attention of the Public, that the County of Worcester has been termed the Garden of England; but, in a moral light, it may be regarded as a waste, howling wilderness” |