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“Unwilling to quit the village without first satisfying myself whether what I had seen was a solitary instance or a sample of its general state, or whether the extremity of poverty I had just beheld had arisen from peculiar improvidence and want of management in one wretched family, I went into an adjoining habitation, where I found a poor old woman of eighty, whose miserable existence was painfully continued by the maintenance of her granddaughter. Their condition, if possible, was more deplorable.”–Curwen, i., pp. 181-183.

This wretchedness, of which all strangers who visit Ireland are so sensible, proceeds certainly in great measure from their accidental use of a food so cheap, that it encourages population to an extraordinary degree, lowers the price of labour, and leaves the multitudes which it calls into existence almost destitute of everything but food. Many more live in consequence of the introduction of potatoes; but all live in greater wretchedness. In the progress of population, the potato must of course become at last as difficult to be procured as any other food; and then let the political economist calculate what the immensity and wretchedness of a people must be, where the further progress of population is checked by the difficulty of procuring potatoes.

The consequence of the long mismanagement and oppression of Ireland, and of the singular circumstances in which it is placed, is, that it is a semi-barbarous country–more shame to those who have thus ill- treated a fine country and a fine people; but it is part of the present case of Ireland. The barbarism of Ireland is evinced by the frequency and ferocity of duels–the hereditary clannish feuds of the common people and the fights to which they give birth–the atrocious cruelties practised in the insurrections of the common people–and their proneness to insurrection. The lower Irish live in a state of greater wretchedness than any other people in Europe inhabiting so fine a soil and climate. It is difficult, often impossible, to execute the processes of law. In cases where gentlemen are concerned, it is often not even attempted. The conduct of under-sheriffs is often very corrupt. We are afraid the magistracy of Ireland is very inferior to that of this country; the spirit of jobbing and bribery is very widely diffused, and upon occasions when the utmost purity prevails in the sister kingdom. Military force is necessary all over the country, and often for the most common and just operations of Government. The behaviour of the higher to the lower orders is much less gentle and decent than in England. Blows from superiors to inferiors are more frequent, and the punishment for such aggression more doubtful. The word GENTLEMAN seems, in Ireland, to put an end to most processes at law. Arrest a gentleman!!!–take out a warrant against a gentleman–are modes of operation not very common in the administration of Irish justice. If a man strike the meanest peasant in England, he is either knocked down in his turn, or immediately taken before a magistrate. It is impossible to live in Ireland without perceiving the various points in which it is inferior in civilisation. Want of unity in feeling and interest among the people–irritability, violence, and revenge–want of comfort and cleanliness in the lower orders–habitual disobedience to the law–want of confidence in magistrates–corruption, venality, the perpetual necessity of recurring to military force–all carry back the observer to that remote and early condition of mankind, which an Englishman can learn only in the pages of the antiquary or the historian. We do not draw this picture for censure but for truth. We admire the Irish–feel the most sincere pity for the state of Ireland–and think the conduct of the English to that country to have been a system of atrocious cruelty and contemptible meanness. With such a climate, such a soil, and such a people, the inferiority of Ireland to the rest of Europe is directly chargeable to the long wickedness of the English Government.