e state of Ulster in the last century, and furnish apt illustrations
of the land question, which, I fancy, will be new and startling to
many readers. Boulter was lord primate of Ireland from 1724 to 1738.
He was thirteen times one of the lords justices. As an Englishman and
a good churchman, he took care of the English interests and of the
establishment. The letters were written in confidence to Sir Robert
Walpole and other ministers of state, and were evidently not intended
for publication. An address 'to the reader' from some friend, states
truly that they give among other things an impartial account of 'the
distressed state of the kingdom for want of _tillage_, the vast sums
of money sent out of the nation for corn, flour, &c., the dismal
calamities thereon, the want of trade and the regulation of the
English and other coins, to the very great distress of all the
manufacturers,' &c. They show that he was a man of sound judgment,
public-spirited, and very moderate and impartial for the times in
which he lived. His evidence with regard to the relations of landlord
and tenant in Ulster is exceedingly valuable at the present moment.
Lord Dufferin could not have read the letters when he wrote his book;
otherwise I should think his apology for the landlords of the last
century would have been considerably modified.

Primate Boulter repeatedly complained to Walpole, the Duke of
Newcastle, and other ministers, that the Ulster farmers were deserting
the country in large numbers, emigrating to the United States, then
British colonies, to the West Indies, or to any country where they
hoped to get the means of living, in many cases binding themselves
to work for a number of years _as slaves_ in payment of their passage
out. The desire to quit the country of their birth is described by the
primate as a mania. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1728 he
says:--'We are under great trouble here about a frenzy that has taken
hold of very great numbers to leave this country for the West Indies,
and we are endeavouring to learn what may be the reasons of it, and
the proper remedies.' Two or three weeks later he reported to the Duke
of Newcastle that for several years past some agents from the colonies
in America, and several masters of ships, had gone about the country
'and deluded the people with stories of great plenty and estates to
be had for going for in those parts of the world.' During the previous
summer more than 3,000