o
the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in devising
means for the tranquillity and improvement of that unhappy and
unfortunate country. The more privileges the people gain, and the
greater assistance they receive, the more unreasonable appear to be
their demands, and the more extravagant their expectations. Still,
there are great and shameful evils, which ought to be remedied. There
are nearly five millions of acres of waste land in the country,
capable of the highest cultivation. The soil is inexhaustibly rich,
the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for
agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain
oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the
earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real
union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different
classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and
Catholic population. The northern and Protestant part of the island is
the most flourishing; but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is
the most miserable country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst
governed, and the most afflicted, in Christendom; and no human
sagacity or wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the
innumerable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the
degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have been
variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the tyranny
of the government, to the system by which the lands are leased and
cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish character. These,
united, may have produced the effects which all philanthropists
deplore; but no one cause, in particular, can account for so fine a
nation sinking into such poverty and wretchedness, especially when it
is considered that the same idle and miserable peasantry, when
transplanted to America, exhibit very different dispositions and
tastes, and develop traits of character which command respect and
secure prosperity.

[Sidenote: Parliamentary Reform.]

The first plan for parliamentary reform was brought forward by Pitt in
1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of a large number
of the House representing no important interests, and dependent on the
minister. But his motion was successfully opposed. In May, 1783, he
brought in another bill to add one hundred members to the House of
Commons, and to abolish a proportionate number of the sma