l,
which is attended with a variety of evil consequences. I heard it
boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged
in it for two-and-twenty years; all I concluded from this was, that there
had been many a jury who deserved it richly.

Let me, however, conclude what I have to observe on the conduct of the
principal people residing in Ireland, that there are great numbers among
them who are as liberal in all their ideas as any people in Europe; that
they have seen the errors which have given an ill character to the
manners of their country, and done everything that example could effect
to produce a change: that that happy change has been partly effected, and
is effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety
of families which he will find actuated by no other principles than those
of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity.

But I must now come to another class of people, to whose conduct it is
almost entirely owing that the character of the nation has not that
lustre abroad, which I dare assert it will soon very generally merit:
this is the class of little country gentlemen; tenants, who drink their
claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows
with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the
evening, and fight the next morning. I shall not dwell on a subject so
perfectly disagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom
drinking, wrangling, quarrelling, fighting, ravishing, etc. etc. are
found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them a pest of
society; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them got by
accident (where they have no business) into better company are sufficient
very much to derange the pleasures that result from a liberal
conversation. A new spirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness
exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it
is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their
sons and cousins into the army or navy, or sink them into plain farmers
like those we have in England, where it is common to see men with much
greater property without pretending to be gentlemen. I repeat it from
the intelligence I received, that even this class are very different from
what they were twenty years ago, and improve so fast that the time will
soon come when the national character will not be degraded by any s