country, which has the full advantage of increafed capital, augmented induftry, and improved machinery, than an individual, who for the greater part of his life has been chained in a dungeon, can expect to vie in the race with the fleetest runner, and moft frequently exercised courfer in his country.

Before I abandon altogether this long, I hope not tedious, argument on the confequences of the depreffion of the manufacturing industry of Ireland, I must be permitted to urge what I feel to be very conclufive against the Irish acceding to fuch imperial policy. I will concede, for the purpose of argument, to the fupporters of Union, not only that agricultural industry is most productive, but I will fuppofe, emiffaries from the Dublin Society, or the Agricultural Society, fent down into every part of the country, and that, instead of contemplating mobs and rioters. plotting confpiracy and war, every thing was changed, and that every village daily emitted its inhabitants to ferve under thefe agricultural knight-errants in draining moraffes, and giving a verdant afpect to the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Bogras, and the immenfe tract of uncultivated wafte, which the Western coaft of Ireland prefents to every traveller: I ask them, if an Union is to give the

national

national industry a direction to the improvement of the land, is it to be a condition of that Union, that the fyftem of primogeniturefhip, and of tythes to the clergy, (the former of which makes it in fome cafes impoffible to let lands on leafes which would animate induftry, and the latter, which difgufts men with agricultural exertion,) are to be inftantaneously abandoned? Are the great feudal proprietors of Ireland prepared to fubmit to fuch a law, as will prevent the monopoly of landed property in the abfurdly favoured firft-born? Are the clergy prepared to make the facrifice of their tythes a part of the terms of Union? I do not think that the Minifter would be inclined, were thefe two claffes of men even difpofed to fubmit to thofe innovations, to conform to them; not becaufe I efteem him very much interested in any thing which may promote the profperity of Ireland, quite the contrary, but because I do think that he would not be defirous of eftablifhing a precedent in Ireland, which the people of England would be difpofed to imitate. Will an Union induce your great landed proprietors to return to your country,. and see the folly and the cruelty of letting leafes of large tracts for ever, or for a long period of years, to middle-men, inftead of the equitable and mutually advantageous mode of fair agree-.

ment

ment between the landlord and immediate occu...!Q pant? Will it strike at the root of an evil which de has defolated your country, the idle diffipation in and extravagance of your little gentlemen farmers, of whom it is well faid by a very able writer on Irifh affairs, (I mean Dr. Crumpe,) "that the yell of a pack of starved beagles iš more pleafing to their ears than the fong of the ploughman: the fight of their fellow sportsmen drenched in infenfibility and whiskey, more pleafing to their eyes, than luxuriant crops and well cultivated fields; and among whom what remains of the ferocious spirit of drinking which formerly difgraced the kingdom is ftill to bet found; and from whom principally emanate all the bad confequences of oppreffion, diffipation, extravagance, and pernicious example." The fair inference from this argument is, that though by an Union Ireland would be compelled to direct a direct a great portion of her industry to e agriculture, in confequence of the depreffion of h manufactures, yet that there are exifting inftituol tions which would render it impoffible for the people of Ireland to have the full benefit of even vo their agricultural industry.*

I fhall not enter into the arguments against agricultural industry, arifing from the comparative dearness of the freight and carriage of the sur

plus

plus produce, after supplying the home confump-... tion. But I entreat the reader to expand his mind to the probable fituation of Europe, when the prefent deplorable conflict is terminated

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what market can Ireland have, fuppofing her to have a great furplus produce of corn-Great Britain would be her beft, becaufe her neareft market; there, it may be faid, fhe would have every encouragement, nay, an exclufive prefer-okt ence. Indeed, Great Britain from fuperior knowledge, and a foil already reclaimed, prepared and fenced in for agricultural produce, will notwithstanding a great augmentation of manufacturing labour, be on most occasions, fully adequate to fupply her manufacturing labourers; and on the particular occafions on which the may need a fupply, Ireland might not be prepared to accommodate her. If the reader defires any further information on the fubject, I would entreat him to refer to Mr. Young's average of the product of England and Ireland. If Great Britain during the last two centuries, whilft Flanders was defolated by fuperftition, and France was fhackled by a barbarous defpotifm, had permitted Ireland to export corn, and given her the full benefit of her national advantages, inftead of driving her people to despair, Ireland at this day might be in a situation to afford much greater advantage, als

to

to England, when incorporated, and in a fituation to be much lefs injured, by incorporation than the would at this hour. But to force Ireland to abandon manufactures, when the cities of Flanders are repeopling-when perfecution in the Low Countries is at an end-when the grand focial principle, that unites all men of all defcriptions under the fhadow of an equal and impartial justice, is, though at the prefent dreadfully abused, making accelerated ftrides over the world, when Spain is throwing away the fhroud of ignorance, when France has broke from the fhackles of feudal tyranny, and efcaped from the thraldom of monkish inflitutions; when Flanders has acquired, if not independence, a full liberty to avail herself of her natural advantages, and when the Northern powers have a granary even in Poland, which has been fo horribly plundered and oppressed, to supply their wants, is a cruelty fo monftrous, that I declare folemnly, I want words to exprefs an adequate indignation of the enormity of the project.

I come now to another investigation of this great fubject, under three very important heads of enquiry:

ift. Whether an unrestricted trade to the British market can, or cannot, augment the exportation of a greater quantity of thofe articles which we are in the habit of fending, thither or of any other articles. And under