Anonymous

“ This is a Complaint I must often make, and can never be too often repeated in their Ears, as without their Help no Workmen, how industrious soever, can thrive. 'Tis miserable that our polite People, will not be content to Ruin their own Families by their extravagant Finery, but their Country too, and all who dare endeavour to exert a little Industry in home Manufactures. Surely the Wearers of all Foreign Goods, and especially the Fair Sex, do not believe, or do not consider, that they deliberately starve their own poor Countrymen and their Families, by making them Work in vain. ”

“ Surely, Tom, Men with common Sense, and common Industry, might make something else of this fertile Country, than a wild solitary Extent of Pastures; and that Men and civilized Creatures, might thrive here as well as Beasts and Barbarians; and that we need not let this poor Region, look like the one ey'd Polyphemus's Island, spoil'd of its Inhabitants, and occupied only by his Sheep and his Cattle? We all know, Grazing makes Countries wild and horrid, their People slothful and uncultivated as the Soil; but one might bear any Fault but starving ”

“ The present Fulness of the Treasury, vastly beyond all former Years, shews how far our Madness is risen; for this Folly of drinking away both our Estates and our Reason, has seized like an epidemical Plague, on all Ranks of Men among us. Even those of the poorer Sort, from a noble Emulation of copying their betters, drink as much Wine as they can; and where their Purses or their Credit will not reach so high, they must have foreign Liquors, tho' they be only Mum or Cyder, Porter or Perry, and seem resolved to shew they are as little afraid of a Jail, as greater Persons. ”

“ This Design must give the highest Joy to the Parliament, which supports and enforces it, for it is certainly a vast Pleasure to a Patriot any way to assist in alleviating and assisting the Wants of his indigent Countrymen; but how much must his Joy be encreas'd, and what must he feel, who bestows Knowledge, Virtue and Industry, to Millions of his Fellow-Citizens? To give to such noble Ends, seems to be transcending the Limits of Humanity, and wou'd look like usurping on the Power of Heaven, if the Creator had not transform'd it, to a Kind of Homage to himself. ”

“ You cheat yourself like most Projectors, with your own Dreams, and your Expectations are suited only to Citizens, who live and act, Tanquam in Republica Platonis. Can you be so absurd as to hope, that Men in these Days, and in Manners like ours, shou'd listen to Reason; and think our own Beer, Ale, Cyder, Mead and home Wines, fittest and best for themselves, their Friends and their Families? ”

“ I must agree with you there, and yet I am convinced, that the Fear of making their own People jealous, the Weight of their Debts, their violent Parties, and their decayed Trade, prevent their doing all they would for us or themselves; the Charity, the unbounded Charity, England extended to us at the Revolution, her Encouragement to our Linens, our Woollen Yarn, and our Cambricks, and to name no more, her Benefactions to our Charter-Schools, are Evidences of her Love to us which can never be forgotten. ”

“ Tom, in Ireland, we neither think, or act for ourselves or the Publick, nor seem to have any System of Rules, for managing our Estates or our Country; but we live in an extempore Method, and as Time serves, and Accidents happen, we Conduct ourselves. When we are famish'd we think of Bread, when frozen to Death, of Coals and Fire, and when we grow uneasy with the Thoughts of all our Mismanagements, Madness and Follies, a large Dose of Wine (a Hair of the very same Dog) relieves all our Griefs over Night, and we rise as Wise and as Provident as ever in the Morning. ”

“ If I were alive, I wou'd write a Book against the dreadful Intemperance of this Age and this Country; tho' I doubt if it wou'd do us much Service; for there is a Time, when the noblest Medicines are of no Use in a Distemper, and I fear our political Diseases are now so desperate, that to die as easily as we can, and to put it off as long as we can, is all our poor Country can hope for. I will therefore leave this, and go to another great Obstacle to the welfare of Ireland, and that is the want of Tillage amongst us. ”

“ As I am now a truly rational thinking Creature, I wou'd not willingly lose my Temper, but I solemnly declare, that the Rules the Society prescrib'd, and the Labours they set on Foot, the Fields which they sow'd or they planted, the Houses they got Built, the Rivers they bank'd in, the Bogs which they drain'd, the Marshes they laid dry, and the Lands they gain'd from the Ocean, have alter'd the very Nature and Face of the Country, and chang'd even the Air and the Climate for the better! ”

“ Where we are grown so heedless and unthinking, that our political Creed, must be as often repeated in our Ears, as our Religious one, before we will take care to understand, or shew we believe it by our Practice? Where we are so notoriously Dull, or so artificially Insensible, that we must be told our true Interest a thousand Times over, before we'll regard it, or where those who know our true Interest best, will Sacrifice it either to their Vanity, Ease, Pleasure or Ambition, or at least to their giddy, senseless, Carelessness? ”

“ I fear we are too lazy, because we are not extraordinarily encouraged, either here or by England; and probably they want to see us more alert, before they help us further; and in the mean time, between our Gentlemen who go abroad for Pleasure, and our Poor for Bread, we are like a Ship that is run a-ground, and the Hands which should have saved her gone off. ”

“ It is very true, and yet we cherish Factions as if we were to thrive by them, tho' they prey on the Vitals of our Country, but I believe there is no Nation in Europe, that acts so much against her own Welfare as Ireland, or suffers more remarkably by it. The great Maxim of its being madness to Trust Men's Promises and Engagements, but that we are quite safe to Trust their real Interests, seldom holds true in Ireland, for here you may trust Men's Words safely in most Things, but they are scarce ever to be depended on, where you wou'd imagine the Interest of the Kingdom secures them to you. ”

“ What must become of a Nation of Beggars, and none to relieve them? What must become of a Country, where the common People make as much Interest, to be put on the List of the Parish Poor, and be authorized to Starve upon Charity; as their Landlords, and 'Squires do to get a Place or a Sallary, to make amends to them, for outrunning their Fortunes, and to appear like dignified Beggars, who for ruining themselves and the Nation, are Nursed at the publick Charge, as the Athenians used to keep their true Patriots, in the Areopagus on Pension, when old and reduced in their Service. ”

“ I wish I may see such a blessed Change in our Affairs, but Seasons and Aspects are a little unpromising; and what discourages me the more is, another dreadful Quality of our People, that of their being so ready to desert and forsake their Country, which they leave as sillily as Birds quit their Nests, upon every little Fright or Disturbance, or just to gratify a wandering Humour, and to chuse a Situation they like better. ”

“ Why, really Tom, as there is no lying in this World, that we are now launch'd into, I must own there is a great deal of Truth in all you have said; and tho' I often writ for the Sake of Applause, yet writing with such a View is a poor Motive, and the best and noblest, and I had almost said, the only justifiable one, is to do Good in an evil World. ”

“ For my part, when I think of this national Madness, in drinking Oceans of French Wine, I know not how to account for such prodigious Extravagance, in such ruinous Circumstances. We seem to live the faster, for being in a deep Decay, as Clocks have a quicker Motion, the nearer they are to being run down. 'Tis an hard Case, that evident right reason can't Influence a Nation, and that there is a Necessity for a Majority of right Reasoners, to make thinking Creatures (as we are commonly called) act as their Interest and Happiness demand. ”

“ Nay, Crowds of our Gentlemen are as indolent (as we observed on another Occasion) as their Slaves are lazy; and seem as unwilling to improve their Estates, as if they thought their Tenures were as uncertain, and as subject to Change, as ever their Ancestors found them. At present, there are few Kingdoms in Europe, where the Titles to them are so indisputably settled as they are in Ireland, and yet they improve more in France, where all depends on the King's Will, than in Ireland, where the Property of the Subject is so impregnably secured by the Laws. ”

“ Can you imagine that this Age of Intemperance and Luxury, will think a while of these important Truths, instead of pleasing their Palates, and driving off that heavy Load, their Time, with the Roar of Jollity and Riot? Is it to be expected that good Fellows and Pot Companions, will be influenced by a Regard for the Welfare of Ireland, when they will not value their own Healths, nor avoid all the Distempers we lately reckon'd up, as well as all the nervous Disorders, that spring from the fatal Tartar, which Claret by sad Experience is found to abound with? ”

“ I allow all this would hold true, if the great and admirable Effects of the Society's Præmiums, did not make it highly probable, that I should have prevailed with several of our worthiest Countrymen, to have assisted so great and so successful an Undertaking. When Men see they have it in their Power, if they will join together, to deliver their Country from all its calamitous Distresses; and to be themselves the Sources of infinite Blessings to Millions yet unborn, their Hands rebell against their Hearts, and even Misers learn to be bounteous. ”

“ Let all who are eminent for Wealth or Birth, or Parts, seriously lay this to Heart, and consider how much the Immorality and Misery, or the Virtue and Prosperity of their Country, is chargeable to them and their Conduct; and it will not fail of stirring up a generous Emulation, who shall be most distinguish'd, in assisting the whole of our People, in Thinking and Acting better, and more nobly than they have hitherto done. ”