have cut our throats, if opportunity had served them'." Such is the testimony of an eye-witness as to the immediate effect of the establishment of the poor-laws, and that witness Dalton. And on what principle of sophistry can its import be evaded, seeing that it strictly comports with the reason of the case, and is fully confirmed by the present condition of every surrounding country, which is still without a national provision for the poor?

(24.) But the abrogation of the constitutional right of poverty, now established and enjoyed for so many generations, would not only remit us to the state from which the country was then happily liberated, but would repeat the wanton cruelty of the last Henry, and under circumstances which would greatly aggravate it. One thing is lost sight of entirely in discussing this subject, namely, that the establishment by law of a perpetual and sufficient fund of relief amongst us, for the maintenance of the poor, has effectually prevented the creation of one by the munificence of private individuals, which would, ere this, have more than repaired the wrongs thus perpetrated, and, indeed, would again have carried provision to a pernicious excess. Certain is it, that, during the long intervening time, had there been no regular relief for the distressed poor, few with the feelings of men or of Christians, whose lives had been prosperous and happy, could have lived or died without making some returns, in the form of charity, as a thank-offering to the Deity. Even with the knowledge that such provision has been made, and that so

'Dalton, Country Justice, ch. xlvii.; published 1618.

to leave or give property at present is little more than bequeathing it to the parish, still this natural feeling has often got the better of reason itself; and very much property has actually been thus left, and infinitely more would have been, had not the law interfered, rendering all bequests void, if left within a year and a day of the testator's death, consequently, in many cases, rendering such bequests nugatory, as last wills are often made within that period of dissolution.

(25.) Had it not been for this regular provision and this obstacle to re-creating one, an ample fund would have been speedily realized for the relief of the poor; in proof of this important assumption, I appeal to the conduct of the rich of a neighbouring nation, not, I hope, more distinguished for their charity than Englishmen. As the men of the revolution so "properly and judiciously" rejected the plague of England, a national provision, what is the conduct of that people? Notwithstanding the impediments the law imposes there, as well as here, in the way of charitable bequests; and independently of the donations, not exceeding one hundred crowns, which it does not recognise; and without including those secret donations which elude the law, and the many legacies which have not been valued, which altogether amount to very large sums; in the five years terminating with 1823, with which year the report I have before me concludes, there were appropriated to the use of the poor in that country,

In money

In "rentes"

In real property

10,242,568

188,157 2,478,041

12,908,766 fr.

This sum, independently of the omissions previously alluded to, and the immense ecclesiastical donations during the same period, but imperfectly shows what Englishmen would have done for generations past, had there been no regular provision for their poor and destitute countrymen. To deprive the poor, therefore, of their long-acknowledged rights, founded upon justice, mercy, and the law of the land, would not be merely a positive spoliation, of the darkest character, but a negative robbery, to at least an equal extent. All the real property of the country has been transmitted and received on this condition; the violation of which would be (to show the offence in an individual case, and not by rhetorical illustration) as though an elder son, to whom a confiding father had committed an imbecile and impotent brother, should, after having intercepted the bounty of every other branch of the family, under colour of providing for him himself, at length throw his parent's will into the fire, to free himself from the incumbrance, and then turn the sufferer adrift as a nuisance in his house and a disgrace to the family.

(26.) In the preceding remarks on the poor-laws of England, tedious as I fear they may be deemed, I have omitted many facts and arguments which have a strong bearing upon the subject; I am in no fear as to their abrogation in this country, but I have been thus diffuse in order to answer by a prolepsis some of the objections which may be advanced against their extension to Ireland. Here, whatever may be individually felt or asserted to the contrary, they constitute nationally

speaking, to all intents and purposes, a voluntary charity; and as such will, I am persuaded, never cease to be cherished by us. England may be burdened by them, but it is a burden of which she is justly proud, and which has given stability to her footsteps in her march to national prosperity: however that may be, she would just as soon rid herself of the incumbrance of destitute infancy and decrepit age, as Æneas would have deserted to their fate the helpless beings with which he came loaded, and impeded in his retreat from the burning ruins of Troy. On the other hand, "as the care of the poor ought to be the principal object of all laws," so it will become, ere long, the favourite work of the legislature to render our present system more efficient, to its great end, than it is at present; and to adapt it more completely to the altered circumstances of the times. Petty recommended, even in a period of very general distress, that the charge of sus taining the poor should be "augmented";" but, I am persuaded, the true course of ameliorating their condition would, in regard of mere expenditure, have a directly contrary effect. The best way of assisting the poor, at least that part of them capable of exertion, is the enabling them to assist themselves; and, in order that we may know how to do this, we ought to place ourselves in the situation in which they are; feel their peculiar wants and wishes, and observe the difficulties by which they are surrounded. Much, very much, I am persuaded, might be done in their behalf, which would indeed, in the first instance, con

' Paley, Moral Phil., book iii. ch. 4, p. 151.

2

Petty, Of Taxes and Contributions, p. 13.

S

duce to their welfare, and that, doubtless, ought to be the great object; but which would as inevitably redound to that of the public; and by means which, while drawing a broad line of distinction between the deserving and profligate poor, not for the purpose of actually starving these, but of more effectually assisting and distinguishing those, would change the whole face of pauperism, and convert the great charity of the country into a mighty and unfailing instrument of its moral elevation. I now allude to means which would occasion no expense to any single individual, or to the community at large; means not of a whimsical, but of a strictly practicable nature,—not founded on some new discovery, but which have been long pointed out by the most patriotic men the country has ever produced; and, in fine, which, having been tried in many instances without failure in any, only await the sanction of the legislature to render them general; while their practicability has been already fully demonstrated in another cause and country. To these topics I shall not allude at present, however tempted to discuss them, though the subject has been one of long and pleasing consideration. They are put into a form to be submitted to the public on some future occasion; and nothing but the consciousness that I have already trespassed too far upon the patience of the reader prevents me going into them at present. I shall, therefore, content myself with saying, that the poor-law which I propose for Ireland, is on the same principle as that which has been so long and so beneficially established amongst us, and rests upon the foundation of compulsory pro