ll the
Advantages we have thro' the encrease of our Inhabitants, is, that for
want of being employ'd, they furnish us with Thieves, Pilferers and
Sharpers, private Wenches, and common Whores, Cheats and Robbers,
Pickpockets, Gamesters, Tinkers and Vagabonds. We get also by this
blessed means some Foundlings for our Hospitals, and Brats for our
Charter Schools, Shoe-boys, and News Criers, and when they're grown up,
Recruits for the holy Convents and Nunneries, and the wise and reverend
Body of the Popish Priests. We have also the Advantage of able bodied
Volunteers, for the Armies of our dear Allies the _French_; Shoals of
Transports, that escape from the Gallows, to the Plantations abroad,
and a superfetation of Felons, to give a little Business to our Judges,
Justices, and Hangmen at home, and to keep up an Appearance of our
being govern'd like other Nations. How many Thousands do we see, take
their flight abroad every Year, like Birds of Passage, to search for
Food and Subsistance in other Countries? How many Thousands never
return again to us, no more than Prisoners to their Confinement, when
they've broke loose from their hard Fare, and their Fetters. I do not
exaggerate in the least; our Numbers, till we can give them Business at
home, are as much a Curse and a Burthen as too large a Garrison in a
besieged Town that wants Provisions: If, as political Writers agree,
the true Interests of any Country consists in the Prosperity not of
some, but of all the People in it, then I am sure _Ireland_, with her
boasted Numbers, is in a bad way; as all her poor Popish Natives, or in
other Words, three-fourths of her swarming Inhabitants, have neither
Houses, Cloaths, Work, Food, or Fire. This is a dismal self-evident
Truth, that demands the serious Consideration of every Irishman, that
can think, or can learn to think. At the same Time, our Nobility and
Gentry set their Lands excessively high, get their Rents paid to a
Penny, have as little fear of Wars or Taxes as of Famines, and live as
well (rambling, and squandering their Fortunes all over the World) as
any People whatever, without one uneasy Thought, as to the
Circumstances of those Crowds of their Countrymen that are starving
here. The Truth is, few Men are sick of other People's Ailments; and as
these honest Gentlemen find themselves quite at Ease, they can't think
others are in Misery. It puts me in mind, _Tom_, of the famous _La
Bruyere_'s Account of a great Statesman