return of those absentees, who take almost one half of the kingdom's
revenues. As to the first, there is nothing left us but despair; and for
the third, it will never happen till the kingdom hath no money to send
them; for which, in my own particular, I should not be sorry.

The exaction of landlords hath indeed been a grievance of above twenty
years' standing. But as to what you object about the severe clauses
relating to improvement, the fault lies wholly on the other side: for
the landlords, either by their ignorance, or greediness of making large
rent-rolls, have performed this matter so ill, as we see by experience,
that there is not one tenant in five hundred who hath made any
improvement worth mentioning. For which I appeal to any man who rides
through the kingdom, where little is to be found among the tenants but
beggary and desolation; the cabins of the Scotch themselves, in Ulster,
being as dirty and miserable as those of the wildest Irish. Whereas good
firm penal clauses for improvement, with a tolerable easy rent, and a
reasonable period of time, would, in twenty years, have increased the
rents of Ireland at least a third part in the intrinsic value.

I am glad to hear you speak with some decency of the clergy, and to
impute the exactions you lament to the managers or farmers of the
tithes. But you entirely mistake the fact; for I defy the most wicked
and most powerful clergymen in the kingdom to oppress the meanest farmer
in the parish; and I likewise defy the same clergyman to prevent himself
from being cheated by the same farmer, whenever that farmer shall be
disposed to be knavish or peevish. For, although the Ulster
tithing-teller is more advantageous to the clergy than any other in the
kingdom, yet the minister can demand no more than his tenth; and where
the corn much exceeds the small tithes, as, except in some districts, I
am told it always doth, he is at the mercy of every stubborn farmer,
especially of those whose sect as well as interest incline them to
opposition. However, I take it that your people bent for America do not
shew the best part of their prudence in making this one part of their
complaint: yet they are so far wise, as not to make the payment of
tithes a scruple of conscience, which is too gross for any Protestant
dissenter, except a Quaker, to pretend. But do your people indeed think,
that if tithes were abolished, or delivered into the hands of the
landlord, after the blessed man