men, women, and children had been shipped
for the West Indies. Of these, not more than one in ten were men of
substance. The rest hired themselves for their passage, or contracted
with masters of ships for four years' servitude, 'selling themselves
as servants for their subsistence.' The whole north was in a ferment,
people every day engaging one another to go next year to the West
Indies. 'The humour,' says the primate, 'has spread like a contagious
distemper, and the people will hardly hear anybody that tries to
cure them of their madness. The worst is that it affects only
_Protestants_, and reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of
our linen manufacture.'

As the Protestant people, the descendants of the English and Scotch
who had settled in the country in the full assurance that they were
building homes for their posterity, were thus deserting those homes in
such multitudes, their pastors sent a memorial to the lord lieutenant,
setting forth the grievances which they believed to be the cause of
the desertion. On this memorial the primate wrote comments to the
English Government, and, in doing so, he stated some astounding
facts as to the treatment of the people by their landlords. He was a
cautious man, thoroughly acquainted with the facts, and writing under
a sense of great responsibility. In order to understand some of those
facts, we should bear in mind that the landlords had laid down large
portions of their estates in pasture, to avoid the payment of tithes,
and that this burden was thrown entirely upon the tenants who tilled
the land. Now, let my readers mark what the primate states as to their
condition. He says:--'If a landlord takes too great a portion of the
profits of a farm for his share by way of rent (as the tithe will
light on the tenant's share), the tenant will be impoverished; but
then it is not the tithe, but the increased rent that undoes the
farmer. And, indeed, in this country, where I fear the tenant hardly
ever has more than one-third of the profits he makes of his farm for
his share, and too often but a _fourth_, or, perhaps, a _fifth part_,
as the tenant's share is charged with the tithe, his case is, no
doubt, hard, but it is plain from what side the hardship arises.' What
the gentlemen wanted to be at, according to the primate, was, that
they might go on raising their rents, and that the clergy should
receive their old payments. He admits, however, that the tenants were
sometimes