who, if he cannot speak well of an absent
friend, will be silent, is a jewel in this life which ought to be worn
in the very core of the heart.

"With respect to the Ballyracket estate, of which I shall speak first, I
cannot report so favorably as I could wish. The task, in fact, is to me,
personally, a very painful one; especially with reference to that well
meaning and estimable gentleman, Mr. Hickman. In the first place, my
Lord, the tenantry are not at all in arrears, a circumstance which is
by no means in favor of the landlord, especially an Irish one. Every one
knows that an Irish landlord has other demands upon his tenantry besides
the payment of their rents. Is there no stress, for instance, to be laid
upon his political influence, which cannot be exerted unless
through their agency? Now a tenant not in arrears to his landlord is
comparatively independent, but it is not with an independent tenantry
that a landlord can work his wishes. No, my Lord; the safe principle
is to keep the tenant two or three gales behind, and if he fails in
submission, or turns restiff, and becomes openly contumacious, then
you have the means of rectifying the errors of his judgment in your own
hands, and it can be done with the color of both law and justice, behind
which any man may stand without the imputation of harsh motives, or
an excessive love of subordination. I am sorry that Mr. Hickman should
differ with me on this point, for he is a man whose opinions are
very valuable on many things, with the exception of his amiable and
kind-hearted obstinacy.

"The next disadvantage to your interests, my Lord, is another error--I
am sorry to be forced to say it--of Mr. Hickman. That gentleman is an
advocate for education and the spread of knowledge. Now if an agent were
as much devoted to the interests of the people as he is and ought to be
to those of the landlord, this principle might pass; but as I take it,
that the sole duty of an agent is to extend the interest of his employer
exclusively, so am I opposed to any plan or practice by which the people
may be taught to think too clearly. For let me ask, my Lord, what class
of persons, at the approach of an election, for instance, or during
its continuance, are most available for our interests? Who are driven
without reluctance, without thought, or without reason, in blind and
infatuated multitudes, to the hustings? Certainly not those who have
been educated, or taught to think and act fo