In the autumn of 1825, Sir Walter visited Ireland, and thus, in homely confidential style, records his impressions:
‘My dear Willie—I conclude you are now returned, with wife and bairns, to Kaeside, and not the worse of your tour. I have been the better of mine; and Killarney being the extreme point, I am just about to commence my return to Dublin, where I only intend to remain two or three days at farthest. I should like to find a line from you, addressed “Care of David Macculloch, Esq., Cheltenham,” letting me know how matters go on at Abbotsford—if you want money (as I suppose you do), and so forth.
‘I have every reason to make a good report of Ireland, having been received with distinction, which is flattering, and with warm-hearted kindness, which is much better. I am happy to say the country is rapidly improving every year, which argues the spirit that is afloat, and indicates that British capital is finding its way into a country where it can be employed to advantage. The idea of security is gaining ground even in those districts which are, or rather were, the most unsettled, and plenty has brought her usual companion content, in her hand. But the public peace is secured chiefly by large bodies of armed police, called by the civil term of constables, but very unlike the Dogberries of England, being, in fact, soldiers on foot and horse, well armed and mounted, and dressed exactly like our yeomen. It is not pleasant to see this, but it is absolutely necessary for some time at least; and from all I can hear, the men are under strict discipline, and behave well. They are commanded by the magistracy, and are very alert.
‘The soil is in most places extremely rich, but cultivation is not as yet well understood. That accursed system of making peats interferes with everything; and I have passed through whole counties where a very noble harvest, ripe for the sickle, was waiting for the next shower of rain; while all the population who should cut were up to the midst in bogs. Not a single field of turnips have I seen, owing probably to the same reason.
‘The political disputes are of far less consequence here than we think in Britain; but, on the whole, it would be highly desirable that the Catholic Bill should pass. It would satisfy most of the higher classes of that persuasion, who seem much inclined to form a sort of Low Church, differing in ceremonies more than in essential points from that of the English Church. I mean they would do this tacitly and gradually. The lower class will probably continue for a long time bigoted Papists; but education becoming general, it is to be supposed that popery, in its violent tenets, will decline even amongst them. By the way, education is already far more general than in England. I saw in the same village four hundred Catholic children attending school, and about two hundred Protestants attending another. The peculiar doctrines of neither church were permitted to be taught; and there were Protestants amongst the Papist children, and Papists among the Protestant.
‘The general condition of the peasantry requires much improvement. Their cabins are wretched, and their dress such a labyrinth of rags, that I have often feared some button would give way, and shame us all. But this is mending, and the younger people are all more decently dressed, and the new huts which are arising are greatly better than the old pigsties. In short, all is on the move and the mend. But as I must be on the move myself, I must defer the rest of my discoveries till we meet. We have in our party, Anne, Lockhart, Walter and his wife, and two Miss Edgeworths, so we are a jolly party. Will you shew this to Lady Scott? I wrote to her two days since.—Always truly yours,
Walter Scott.
‘Killarney, 8th August.’
The brilliance of Abbotsford had now reached its culminating point. The commercial crisis of 1825–26 was close at hand, and the first note of the alarm and confusion in the money-market suspended all improvements, and occasioned intense anxiety to Sir Walter. We add two letters as supplementing Lockhart’s narrative:
‘My dear William—The money-market in London is in a tremendous state, so much so that, whatever good reason I have, and I have the best, for knowing that Constable and his allies, Hurst and Robinson, are in perfect force, yet I hold it wise and necessary to prepare myself for making good my engagements, which come back on me suddenly, or by taking up those which I hold good security for. For this purpose I have resolved to exercise my reserved faculty to burden Abbotsford with £8000 or £10,000. I can easily get the money, and having no other debts, and these well secured, I hold it better to “put money in my purse,” and be a debtor on my land for a year or two, till the credit of the public is restored. I may not want the money, in which case I will buy into the funds, and make some cash by it. But I think it would be most necessary, and even improper not to be fully prepared.