feelings of the Irish towards their priests.

[557] _Possess_.--While these pages were passing through the press, a
circumstance has occurred which so clearly illustrates the position of
the Irish priest, that I cannot avoid mentioning it. A gentleman has
purchased some property, and his first act is to give his three tenants
notice to quit. The unfortunate men have no resource but to obey the
cruel mandate, and to turn out upon the world homeless and penniless.
They cannot go to law, for the law would be against them. They are not
in a position to appeal to public opinion, for they are only farmers.
The parish priest is their only resource and their only friend. He
appeals to the feelings of their new landlord in a most courteous
letter, in which he represents the cruel sufferings these three families
must endure. The landlord replies that he has bought the land as a
"commercial speculation," and of course he has a right to do whatever he
considers most for his advantage; but offers to allow the tenants to
remain if they consent to pay double their former rent--a rent which
would be double the real value of the land. Such cases are constantly
occurring, and are constantly exposed by priests; and we have known more
than one instance in which fear of such exposure has obtained justice. A
few of them are mentioned from time to time in the Irish local papers.
The majority of cases are entirely unknown, except to the persons
concerned; but they are remembered by the poor sufferers and their
friends. I believe, if the people of England were aware of one-half of
these ejectments, and the sufferings they cause, they would rise up as a
body and demand justice for Ireland and the Irish; they would marvel at
the patience with which what to them would be so intolerable has been
borne so long.

[558] _Free trade_,--A very important work was published in 1779, called
_The Commercial Restraints of Ireland Considered_. It is a calm and
temperate statement of facts and figures. The writer shows that the
agrarian outrages of the Whiteboys were caused by distress, and quotes a
speech Lord Northumberland to the same effect.--_Com. Res._, p. 59.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Celebrated Irishmen of the Eighteenth Century--BURKE--- His School and
College Life--Early Hatred of Oppression--Johnson's Estimate of
Burke--_Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful_--Commencement of his
Political Career--Opinions on the American Question-English Infatuation
a