water's edge, enliven the scene not a little. The water is very deep and
the navigation secure, so that ships of seven hundred tons may come up to
the town; but these noble harbours on the coast of Ireland are only
melancholy capabilities of commerce: it is languid and trifling. There
are only four or five brigs and sloops that belong to the place.

Having now passed through a considerable extent of country, in which the
Whiteboys were common, and committed many outrages, I shall here review
the intelligence I received concerning them throughout the county of
Kilkenny. I made many inquiries into the origin of those disturbances,
and found that no such thing as a leveller or Whiteboy was heard of till
1760, which was long after the landing of Thurot, or the intending
expedition of M. Conflans. That no foreign coin was ever seen among
them, though reports to the contrary were circulated; and in all the
evidence that was taken during ten or twelve years, in which time there
appeared a variety of informers, none was ever taken, whose testimony
could be relied on, that ever proved any foreign interposition. Those
very few who attempted to favour it, were of the most infamous and
perjured characters. All the rest, whose interest it was to make the
discovery, if they had known it, and who concealed nothing else,
pretended to no such knowledge. No foreign money appeared, no arms of
foreign construction, no presumptive proof whatever of such a connection.
They began in Tipperary, and were owing to some inclosures of commons,
which they threw down, levelling the ditches, and were first known by the
name of Levellers. After that, they began with the tithe-proctors (who
are men that hire tithes of the rectors), and these proctors either
screwed the cottars up to the utmost shilling, or relet the tithes to
such as did it. It was a common practice with them to go in parties
about the country, swearing many to be true to them, and forcing them to
join by menaces, which they very often carried into execution. At last
they set up to be general redressers of grievances, punished all
obnoxious persons who advanced the value of lands, or hired farms over
their heads; and, having taken the administration of justice into their
hands, were not very exact in the distribution of it. Forced masters to
release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, and
ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happene