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In the debate which took place in the Irish House of Commons, upon the Bill for preventing tumultuous risings and assemblies, on the 31st of January, 1787, the Attorney-General submitted to the House the following narrative of facts.

“The commencement,” said he, “was in one or two parishes in the county of Kerry; and they proceeded thus. The people assembled in a Catholic chapel, and there took an oath to obey the laws of Captain Right, and to starve the clergy. They then proceeded to the next parishes on the following Sunday, and there swore the people in the same manner; with this addition, that they (the people last sworn) should on the ensuing Sunday proceed to the chapels of their next neighbouring parishes and swear the inhabitants of those parishes in like manner. Proceeding in this manner, they very soon went through the province of Munster. The first object was the REFORMATION OF TITHES. They swore not to give more than a certain price per acre, not to assist or allow them to be assisted in drawing the tithe, and to permit NO PROCTOR. They next took upon them to prevent the collection of parish cesses, next to nominate parish clerks, and in some cases curates, to say what church should or should not be repaired, and in one case to threaten that they would burn a NEW church if the OLD one were not given for a mass-house. At last they proceeded to regulate the price of lands, to raise the price of labour, and to oppose the collection of the hearth-money and other taxes. Bodies of 5,000 of them have been seen to march through the country unarmed, and, if met by any magistrate, THEY NEVER OFFERED THE SMALLEST RUDENESS OR OFFENCE; on the contrary, they had allowed persons charged with crimes to be taken from amongst them by the magistrate ALONE, unaided by any force.

“The Attorney-General said he was well acquainted with the province of Munster, and that it was impossible for human wretchedness to EXCEED THAT OF THE PEASANTRY OF THAT PROVINCE. The unhappy tenantry were GROUND TO POWDER by relentless landlords; that, far from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they had not food or raiment for themselves–the landlord grasped the whole; and sorry was he to add that, not satisfied with the present extortion, some landlords had been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes, not in order to alleviate the distresses of the tenantry, but that they might add the clergy’s share to the cruel rack-rents they already paid. The poor people of Munster lived in a MORE ABJECT STATE OF POVERTY THAN HUMAN NATURE COULD BE SUPPOSED EQUAL TO BEAR.”–“Grattan’s Speeches,” vol. i., p. 292.

We are not, of course, in such a discussion to be governed by names. A middleman might be tied up by the strongest legal restriction, as to the price he was to exact from the under-tenants, and then he would be no more pernicious to the estate than a steward. A steward might be protected in exactions as severe as the most rapacious middleman; and then, of course, it would be the same thing under another name. The practice to which we object is the too common method in Ireland of extorting the last farthing which the tenant is willing to give for land rather than quit it: and the machinery by which such practice is carried into effect is that of the middleman. It is not only that it ruins the land; it ruins the people also. They are made so poor–brought so near the ground–that they can sink no lower; and burst out at last into all the acts of desperation and revenge for which Ireland is so notorious. Men who have money in their pockets, and find that they are improving in their circumstances, don’t do these things. Opulence, or the hope of opulence or comfort, is the parent of decency, order, and submission to the laws. A landlord in Ireland understands the luxury of carriages and horses, but has no relish for the greater luxury of surrounding himself with a moral and grateful tenantry. The absent proprietor looks only to revenue, and cares nothing for the disorder and degradation of a country which he never means to visit. There are very honourable exceptions to this charge: but there are too many living instances that it is just. The rapacity of the Irish landlord induces him to allow of the extreme division of his lands. When the daughter marries, a little portion of the little farm is broken off–another corner for Patrick, and another for Dermot–till the land is broken into sections, upon one of which an English cow could not stand. Twenty mansions of misery are thus reared instead of one. A louder cry of oppression is lifted up to heaven, and fresh enemies to the English name and power are multiplied on the earth. The Irish gentleman, too, extremely desirous of political influence, multiplying freeholds, and splitting votes; and this propensity tends of course to increase the miserable redundance of living beings, under which Ireland is groaning. Among the manifold wretchedness to which the poor Irish tenant is liable, we must not pass over the practice of driving for rent. A lets land to B, who lets it to C, who lets it again to D. D pays C his rent, and C pays B. But if B fails to pay A, the cattle of B, C, D are all driven to the pound, and after the interval of a few days sold by auction. A general driving of this kind very frequently leads to a bloody insurrection. It may be ranked among the classical grievances of Ireland.