That great prelate, to whose care you directed your letter, sent it to me this morning;[88] and I begin my answer to-night, not knowing what interruption I may meet with.
I have ordered your letter to be printed, as it ought to be, along with my answer; because I conceive it will be more acceptable and informing to the kingdom.
I shall therefore now go on to answer your letter in all manner of sincerity.
Although your letter be directed to me, yet I take myself to be only an imaginary person; for, although I conjecture I had formerly one from you, yet I never answered it otherwise than in print; neither was I at a loss to know the reasons why so many people of this kingdom were transporting themselves to America. And if this encouragement were owing to a pamphlet written, giving an account of the country of Pennsylvania, to tempt people to go thither, I do declare that those who were tempted, by such a narrative, to such a journey, were fools, and the author a most impudent knave; at least, if it be the same pamphlet I saw when it first came out, which is above 25 years ago, dedicated to Will Penn (whom by a mistake you call "Sir William Penn,") and styling him, by authority of the Scripture, "Most Noble Governor." For I was very well acquainted with Penn, and did, some years after, talk with him upon that pamphlet, and the impudence of the author, who spoke so many things in praise of the soil and climate, which Penn himself did absolutely contradict. For he did assure me that his country wanted the shelter of mountains, which left it open to the northern winds from Hudson's Bay and the Frozen Sea, which destroyed all plantations of trees, and was even pernicious to all common vegetables. But, indeed, New York, Virginia, and other parts less northward, or more defended by mountains, are described as excellent countries: but, upon what conditions of advantage foreigners go thither, I am yet to seek.[89]
What evils do our people avoid by running from hence, is easier to be determined. They conceive themselves to live under the tyranny of most cruel exacting landlords, who have no view further than increasing their rent-rolls. Secondly, you complain of the want of trade, whereof you seem not to know the reason. Thirdly, you lament most justly the money spent by absentees in England. Fourthly, you complain that your linen manufacture declines. Fifthly, that your tithe-collectors oppress you. Sixthly, that your children have no hopes of preferment in the church, the revenue, or the army; to which you might have added the law, and all civil employments whatsoever. Seventhly, you are undone for silver, and want all other money.
I could easily add some other motives, which, to men of spirit, who desire and expect, and think they deserve the common privileges of human nature, would be of more force, than any you have yet named, to drive them out of this kingdom. But, as these speculations may probably not much affect the brains of your people, I shall choose to let them pass unmentioned. Yet I cannot but observe, that my very good and virtuous friend, his excellency Burnet, (O fili, nec tali indigne parente!)[90] hath not hitherto been able to persuade his vassals, by his oratory in the style of a command, to settle a revenue on his viceroyal person.[91] I have been likewise assured, that in one of those colonies on the continent, which nature hath so far favoured, as (by the industry of the inhabitants) to produce a great quantity of excellent rice, the stubbornness of the people, who having been told that the world is wide, took it into their heads that they might sell their own rice at whatever foreign markets they pleased, and seem, by their practice, very unwilling to quit that opinion.
But, to return to my subject: I must confess to you both, that if one reason of your people's deserting us be, the despair of things growing better in their own country, I have not one syllable to answer; because that would be to hope for what is impossible; and so I have been telling the public these ten years. For there are three events which must precede any such blessing: First, a liberty of trade; secondly, a share of preferments in all kinds, to the British natives; and thirdly, a 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 manner in the Scotch spiritual economy, that the tenant would sit easier in his rent under the same person, who must be lord of the soil and of the tithe together?