r they got, was employed to
cultivate and increase their own estates; and by that means enrich
themselves and their country.

As to the great number of rich absentees, under the degree of peers;
what particular ill effects their absence may have upon this kingdom,
besides those already mentioned, may perhaps be too tender a point for
me to touch. But whether those who live in another kingdom, upon great
estates here; and have lost all regards to their own country, further
than upon account of the revenues they receive from it: I say, whether
such persons may not be prevailed on to recommend others to vacant
seats, who have no interest here, except a precarious employment; and
consequently can have no views, but to preserve what they have got, or
to be higher advanced: This, I am sure, is a very melancholy question,
if it be a question at all.

But, besides the prodigious profit which England receives by the
transmittal thither of two-thirds of the revenues of this whole kingdom;
it hath another mighty advantage by making our country a receptacle,
wherein to disburthen themselves of their supernumerary pretenders to
offices; persons of second-rate merit in their own country; who, like
birds of passage, most of them thrive and fatten here, and fly off when
their credit and employments are at an end. So that Ireland may justly
say what Luther said of himself; POOR Ireland maketh many rich.

If amidst all our difficulties, I should venture to assert, that we have
one great advantage, provided we could improve it as we ought; I believe
most of my readers would be long in conjecturing what possible advantage
could ever fall to our share. However, it is certain, that all the
regular seeds of party and faction among us are entirely rooted out, and
if any new ones shall spring up, they must be of equivocal generation,
without any seed at all; and will justly be imputed to a degree of
stupidity beyond even what we have been ever charged with upon the score
of our birth-place and climate.

The parties in this kingdom (including those of modern date) are, First,
of those who have been charged or suspected to favour the Pretender; and
those who were zealous opposers of him. Secondly, of those who were for
and against a toleration of Dissenters by law. Thirdly, of High and Low
Church; or, (to speak in the cant of the times) of Whig and Tory: And,
Fourthly, of court and country. If there be any more, they are beyond my
observation