this emigration went, is far beyond what would be supposed, but it appears on the clearest evidence that from the year 1725 to 1768, the number of emigrants gradually increased from 3,000 to 6,000 annually, making altogether about two hundred thousand Protestants! This number would at all times appear great, even in the present century, when our population is so increased, but when we consider the population of that day, it will appear truly astonishing, by the returns laid before Parliament in 1731, the total number of Protestants in Ireland was 527,505, or a little more than half a million. Now, of these, 200,000 emigrated, so that making ample allowance for the increase of population between the years 1731 and 1768, we shall still find that one-third of the whole Protestant population of Ireland emigrated within that disastrous period! We are the descendants of the two-thirds, who remained, and, as it appears by the last census, that we have increased to two millions, we may see how, in the third, which emigrated, we have to mourn the loss of another million of Protestants. Yet, let us not mourn their departure; their's has been the high destiny of founding and peopling new nations-the lofty destiny of rocking the cradle of the infant genius of America-their's has been the Elysian lot of changing the barren wilderness into the fruitful field, and seated, as it were, under their own vine, they have found a peaceful and happy home, instead of all that storm and trouble, and want and danger, which haunt us in this wretched island-they are far away from our present afflictions, and it is they who have emigrated, and not we who have remained, that have the brightest prospect of happiness and peace. An emigration so extensive-draining the country of that population which was the only support of "the settlement" of property, and of the allegiance of this island,-naturally alarmed both the government and the proprietary, it became the subject of very frequent communication between the government here, and the ministry in England, and many persons turned their attention to devise means of staying it. It was suggested among other remedies, that the government should place a positive prohibition against any ship sailing from an Irish port with passengers; this was the absurd remedy adopted in the time of Charles I., to prevent the puritans and others emigrating from England to America, and which actually prevented the sailing of the vessel in which Oliver Cromwell had engaged his passage as an emigrant to New England; this was in the year 1637, and now, in precisely a century afterwards, it was suggested to take the same steps to prevent the emigration of the Protestants of Ireland. The strangest feature of this suggestion was, that it came from the proprietary, who were themselves the cause of that emigration which they were now anxious to prevent, and who always had it in their power to stay it, but it was in that day even as it is in our present times, they merely mourned the evil, and, instead of encouraging a Protestant tenantry, they looked to other sources of relief. It is scarcely necessary to add that this suggestion was not acted on, but most fortunately for the property of the country, the object which was so anxiously sought for, was compassed by a measure of a totally different kind, and from which such a result was never anticipated. That measure was the Octennial Bill, which passed in 1768. Previous to the passing of that measure the Irish Parliament might be said to be perpetual, for it was limited only by the demise of of the Crown. In consequence of this the country was but little disturbed by elections, and the proprietary, as well as the members concerned themselves very little about the state of their constituency; but after the passing of this bill, limiting the duration of parliament to eight years, our country gentlemen were thrown back more frequently on their constituency, and compelled on that account to watch and direct it. At this period none but Protestants could vote, and, of course, the electioneering influence of every landlord depended on the number of Protestants on his estate; in order, therefore, to create a strong county influence the landlords were necessitated to stop their system of removing their Protestant tenantry and making them give place to the Papists, and they thus put an effectual stop to the emigration of Protestants, by giving to them beneficial leases, and thereby inducing them to remain; nor were they content with this, for they were so anxious to encrease their electioneering influence, that they sought after Protestants in every way various parties were induced to come from England and Scotland, and large bodies, as the Palatines, were tempted to leave their own country, (for the Protestants were then much persecuted in Germany and other places on the continent,) and to settle in Ireland, while the Province of Ulster was assailed with the applications and promises of our proprietary, to induce them to settle in the other provinces, the result of all which was, that a Protestant population was soon visible, springing up in the darkest and most barren places in the land; nor was this the only effect of the bill, for when the landlords showed their desire and gave their energies to the extension of Protestantism, large bodies of Papists gladly flung from them the ragged superstitions of their Church, and avowed themselves as no longer Romanists. The singular system of terrorism and combination which holds the members of that church together in this island was found too weak for the influence of the landlords, and it gave way every where before them; indeed so extended was the conformity at that time that the Catholic Body, as it was then called, petitioned the Parliament to extend the franchise to the Papists, on the grounds that the population was conforming so rapidly in order to obtain that privilege under the profession of Protestantism! This was certainly a happy state of things for the Protestant population; it was too happy to last long, especially for a people so doomed to suffering affliction as the Protestants of Ireland; it was completely suppressed by that unfortunate measure the enfranchisement of the Roman Catholics in 1793. That measure, while it conferred power on those who, from religion and nationality were estranged from the proprietary, removed at the same time the motive for encouraging Protestants, it removed the premium which the landlord previously found in encreasing his Protestant tenantry, and so brought all things back again to the afflicting system which preceded the passing of the Octennial Bill, and which had led to the expatriation of the Protestants, as already detailed. We cannot therefore, be surprised that the fountains of emigration, which had been sealed for a time, were again opened and poured forth a stream which has continued, until it has become a mighty flood, as at this day. We now approach the emigration of the present times, an emigration on such an extended scale as to give promise for exceeding anything of the kind ever yet known in any nation; it commenced shortly after the rebellion, when a spirit of a peculiarly hostile character began to reveal itself among the Romanists, so as to induce many Protestants to withdraw from the country for a long period; however the numbers were comparatively small, until the freehold leases which the landlords had granted to the Protestant tenantry previous to 1893, began to expire, and then the numbers swelled to an enormous amount, by reason of the removal of the old Protestant freeholders at the expiration of their leases. During the last ten years the number of Protestant emigrants has regularly encreased each succeeding year, shewing a greater number than that which preceded it— Nor is this extensive drain of the Protestant population, so far as it has yet prevailed, the only or the greatest evil, for the whole body is in motion-the great body of the Protestant farmers, and mechanics, and manufacturers are in motion. They are all thinking on the subject, and preparing to emigrate. There is scarcely a family of the lower order of Protestants which has not some member or near relative already in America, and all are longing to flee away from this ill-fated island, looking forward with anxiety to the time when they can so arrange their little affairs, as to be enabled to emigrate with some prospect of success. In the Province of Connaught, the various counties of Leitrim, and Sligo, and Mayo, have poured forth a great portion of their population; and the last-named county (Mayo) although it contains a smaller number of Protestants than almost any other county in Ireland, has actually lost by emigration during the last two years no less than 1150 Protestants. In the Province of Munster, the counties of Limerick and Tipperary are already nearly exhausted, and promise ere long to be completely so; while Waterford and some parts of Cork have lost prodigious numbers. In the Province of Leinster, the several counties of Wexford, and Longford, and Queen's County, have literally sent and are preparing to send, thousands to America. In the Province of Ulster, the great settlement of the Protestants, the number that have already emigrated is almost incredible, while the desire to imitate their example is almost universal among those who remain. During the last few years, the number of Protestants from the North has equalled, and sometimes exceeded those from all the rest of Ireland together. The four ports of Newry, Belfast, Derry, and Sligo are those nearest our Protestant population; and although vast numbers have gone from Dublin, and very many have sailed from the ports of New Ross, and Waterford, and Cork, and even from Limerick, and though some few have sailed from Galway, Westport, and Ballina, yet the great body of Protestants have gone from the northern ports; that once happy and prosperous province, whose population was as wealthy and peaceful as it was religious and happy, is rapidly losing those beantiful features, for which we once loved and admired it, and the scowling and ferocious aspect of Popery is fast unveiling itself where the smiling and gentle spirit of Protestantism was once almost universal. That a change of a fearful and striking nature should be observable in other districts is only what might be expected. In some parishes, where there was a few years ago a respectable Protestant population, there is not a solitary individual now; so that where hundreds once were, there is not a trace of them to be found at present. In other places the number has been so reduced that we have but a meagre skeleton of what there once was, and even these are compelled, in their weakness now, to submit to every insulting indignity which their triumphing competitors are pleased to enjoin. In some parishes, the present Protestants are so resolved on emigrating that the building of churches, &c. has been stopped, as being likely to be utterly useless in another year, from the intended emigration of the entire Protestant population, instances of which are known to ourselves. It is a melancholy fact that the whole Protestant population of the lower orders are in preparation to abandon this country, and to seek a more happy settlement VOL. I. in other climes; they seem lifting their wings and preparing to "flee into the wilderness" of the new world, in order to escape the troubles of the old. It is utterly impossible to acertain with any precision the total number of Protestants who have left us, as the subject of emigration occupied, for a long time, very little of public attention, but of late the departure of so many Protestants has drawn the attention of many to the subject, and means, reasonably effective, have been resorted to to ascertain the numbers that sail each year from all the several sea-ports. There are many accurate details as to the last four years, collected with great pains, and they give the following result.— In 1829 the number was 12,000-in 1830 it was 11,000-in 1831 it encreased to 29,600-and in 1832, the amount of which has never before been published, it was 31,500, being a total of 94,5000 Protestant souls within the short space of four years! The number of last year would have been considerably greater, only that the prevalence of the cholera disarranged the affairs of a large portion of intended emigrants, especially when they learned that the emigrants were necessitated to undergo a quarantine beyond the Atlantic; these persons will probably depart this present year, and thus swell to an enormous extent the tide that has already been flowing from our coast. During the last two years large bodies of Roman Catholics, sick of the bondage which they suffer from their priests, and from the factious, and allured by the success which has attended others, have been induced to emigrate. These Roman Catholics, however, who were very numerous at the ports in the south and west of Ireland, are not included in the statement above given, which embraces the Protestant emigrants alone. So extensive an emigration of that Protestant population, on which the safety of the property and the allegiance of this island so much depend, is entitled to the deepest attention; and it well becomes every man, who is anxious for the public weal, to endeavour to ascertain the real causes of so disastrous an evil. In setting forth those causes which appear to us to be the most effective ones, we would observe, that we have already seen how the first great stream of Protestant 3 R emigration from Ireland was caused by the terrible and insupportable persecutions which they were compelled to endure from the popish population in the rebellion of 1641; we have also seen how the second great stream was caused by the avidity of the landlords, manifested in that system which they adopted during the last century, and we shall now find that the very same causes, namely, persecution by the Papists and the avidity of the landlords for an extravagant rental, are the grand and most effective of all the motives which have led to that melancholy and disheartening tide of emigration which gives promise of soon exhausting the whole protestant population of Ireland. We shall concisely consider these. calculates whether he can make the rent; and as he is, in general, contented to keep his family on the lowest possible kind of feeding and clothing, he is enabled to live on much less, and so, saving a larger sum out of the proceeds of the farm, out-bids the Protestant. The result of this competition is always the same, namely, the Romanist takes possession of the land, and the Protestant takes his passage to America! Unhappily, our landlords have learned to value a tenant, not according to his character for honesty or loyalty, nor according to his disposition to improve the land, nor according to the punctuality of his payments, but according to the amount which he adds to the rentroll; he may be a Whiteboy, a Blackfoot, or a Whitefoot-he may be a Steel-boy, or a Ribbon-man, spending his days in the Shebeen, and his nights in the Ballinafad, still, if he only offer the highest rent, he is declared the tenant; and, unfortunately, to make this matter still worse in its effects, the landlords pay little or no attention to the matter, but hand over the management of their tenantry to stew I.-It was said by Lord Chancellor Clare some forty years ago that, "The great misfortunes of Ireland, and particularly of the lower classes of its inhabitants is, that at the expiration of every lease, the farm is put up to auction, and without considering whether it is a Protestant or a Papist-whether he is industrious or indolent-whether he is a solvent or a beggar, the highest bid-ards and drivers, who being, in general, der is declared the tenant by the lawagent of the estate, I must say to the disgrace of the landlord, and most frequently much in his advantage. It happened to me to canvass the county in which I reside, and on an estate, which had been madly set at £20,000 a year, as I recollect, I found but five Protestant tenants!" Such were the sentiments of one who knew Ireland and its evils well, and who possessed both the means of ascertaining the truth, and the moral courage to proclaim it in his place in parliament. The manner in which this system acts in the promotion of protestant emigration is easily explained: when a farm is vacant, there is an extraordinary competition for it, and men will out-bid each other to an extent ruinous to themselves though lucrative to the landlord. The protestant farmer in making his proposal, calculates whether he will be able to feed, and clothe, and educate his family on the profit; and as his decent and respectable habits of life require a certain expenditure, he feels he can, as an honest man, offer only a certain moderate rent for the farm. The Romanist, on the other hand, merely native Papists, stupid in all the prejudices, and implicated often in the designs of the ill-affected, take care that their companions in disaffection shall always possess the preference. It is a sad and melancholy fact, that owing to this system, the whole face of the country is by degrees changing owners-passing from the hands of the loyal, peaceful, and religious Protestant, who was a good tenant, as well as a faithful subject, into the hands of the most active and wily partizans of those who are opposed to the interests of the landlord, as they are estranged from the supremacy of England; so that, at this moment, the leaders and movers of Agrarian disturbances are found, not among the impoverished cotters, but among the substantial farmers, proving that it is not poverty, but something more deep as well as more dangerous, that is the moving cause of our agrarian insurrections. II. A second element in this moving cause of protestant emigration, is to be found in the peculiar state of society among the lower orders in Ireland. In every part of this country there has sprung up of late years a system of forming knots, or cabals, of all the factious and most ill-affected in the vicinity; those who conceive them selves aggrieved by some government prosecution others who feel them selves injured by some needy landlord -some who are descended from: ancient families, and are looking to the forfeited estates, and others who forecast the same object, hoping to obtain something in the general confusion ;* to these are added some, whose mistaken notion of patriotism after Irish independence, and others whose religious zeal incites to the expulsion of heresy, and the exaltation of their church. All these various persons are combined in discontent, and are in cabal with factious and ill-affected intentions in every neighbourhood and around it, as a nucleus, all the evil passions of the people rally. The priest of the parish is generally, by a sort of common consent, the nominal head of all these, a step of much advantage to them, as while it gives the sanction of religion, it removes from them all the petty rivalries and dissentions that would exist, if they were to select a head among themselves. The great object of the longing aspirasions of these persons, is the expulsion of the Sasenach, and some vague and undefined expectation of some convulsion or revolution, which will alter the present system of property altogether, and confer on them some halcyon state in which neither rent, nor taxes, nor tithes, will be so much as named among them. The conduct of these persons is what might be expected; there is no species of petty persecution which the Protestants are not exposed to from them; and from all that mass of population, with whom they have influence, all the enmity of the native Papists against England against government against the landlord against Protestantism, is wrecked on the ill-fated and unprotected heads of the lower order of Protestants; for some years this system has been carried to a fearful extent, so that our people are beaten at fairs and markets, and exposed at all times to the open hostility, as well as the secret enmity of the native and Popish population; so that it would be impossible, even had they no other evils to contend against, for them to remain in the country. Those persons, who, from their rank in life, do not associate with the lower orders, can have no conception of the extent to which this system of petty persecution is carried on, it keeps them in a state of increasing anxiety and disgust, so that they are always in alarm, and never have a comfortable sense of personal security among them; so that there is no object of an earthly kind, which is talked of and longed after, at their fireside, so much or so anxiously, as an opportunity of fleeing such an unceasing and secret persecution. Nothing can tend more than this feeling, this sense of insecurity, to promote emigration, and unfortunately this result of the system of persecution has the effect of holding out a premium to the continuance of the system, as will thus appear. There is nothing more common, during the last few years, than for some Roman Catholic, who sees a Protestant possessed of a farm, which would be a desirable acquisition, to resolve to make it his own, and in order to effect this object, a system of annoyance and persecution is resorted to, a threatening notice is posted on his house, his family is insulted, himself beaten at the fair, or returning from market, and his life made so uncomfortable, and, as he thinks, so insecure, that he proposes to free himself from all by emigration; this was the very object his persecutor was aiming at, and, having succeeded in removing the occupant, the Roman Catholic gets possession of the farm. This is a matter of no difficulty, for he will offer any rent, and will be strongly recommended by the Popish underlings of the landlord, who is often unwittingly thus made the instrument of this system; and, besides all this, the A curious instance of this is known to the writer of this article, in the little country town in which he resides: there was a decent Roman Catholic family, which was induced to go to America in 1832; the eldest son, however, remained at home, and he and all the family avowed the motive to have been, that he is entitled to some estate forfeited by his ancestors, and that he remains expecting to obtain possession of it in some revolution, which they think possible ere long! |