Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/375

Rh of the kingdom's revenue. As to the first and second, there is nothing left us but despair; and for the third, it will never happen till the kingdom has no money to send them, for which, in my own particular, I shall not be sorry.

The exaction of landlords has indeed been a grievance of above twenty years standing. But, as to what you object about the severe clauses relating to the 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 has 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 of the intrinsick 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 the most powerful clergyman in the kingdom, to oppress the meanest farmer in the parish; and I 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 vantageous