themselves as survive, may behold, in the crimes which disgrace the
country, the disastrous effects of a bad system created by their
forefathers or themselves.

In the meantime, I have no doubt that by the removal of the causes which
produced this deplorable state of things, their disastrous effects will
also soon disappear. That the present landlords of Ireland are, with the
ordinary number of exceptions, a very different class of men from those
who have gone before them, is a fact which will ultimately tell for the
peace and prosperity of the country. Let the ignorance of the people,
or rather the positive bad knowledge with which, as to a sense of civil
duties, their minds are filled, be removed, and replaced with principles
of a higher and more Christian tendency. Let the Irish landlords
consider the interests of their tenantry as their own, and there is
little doubt that with the aids of science, agricultural improvement,
and the advantages of superior machinery, the Irish will become a
prosperous, contented, and great people.

It is not just to the general character of our people, however, to speak
of these crimes as national; for, in fact, they are not so. If Tipperary
and some of the adjoining parts of Munster were blotted out of the moral
map of the country, we would stand as a nation in a far higher position
than that which we occupy in the opinion of our neighbors. This is a
distinction which in justice to us ought to be made, for it is surely
unfair to charge the whole kingdom with the crimes which disgrace only
a single county of it, together with a few adjacent districts--allowing,
of course, for some melancholy exceptions in other parts.

Having now discussed, with, I think, sufficient candor and impartiality,
that portion of our national character which appears worst and weakest