Lord Dufferin could not have read the letters when he wrote his book;
otherwise I should think his apology for the landlords of the last
century would have been considerably modified.

Primate Boulter repeatedly complained to Walpole, the Duke of
Newcastle, and other ministers, that the Ulster farmers were deserting
the country in large numbers, emigrating to the United States, then
British colonies, to the West Indies, or to any country where they
hoped to get the means of living, in many cases binding themselves
to work for a number of years _as slaves_ in payment of their passage
out. The desire to quit the country of their birth is described by the
primate as a mania. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1728 he
says:--'We are under great trouble here about a frenzy that has taken
hold of very great numbers to leave this country for the West Indies,
and we are endeavouring to learn what may be the reasons of it, and
the proper remedies.' Two or three weeks later he reported to the Duke
of Newcastle that for several years past some agents from the colonies
in America, and several masters of ships, had gone about the country
'and deluded the people with stories of great plenty and estates to
be had for going for in those parts of the world.' During the previous
summer more than 3,000 men, women, and children had been shipped
for the West Indies. Of these, not more than one in ten were men of
substance. The rest hired themselves for their passage, or contracted
with masters of ships for four years' servitude, 'selling themselves
as servants for their subsistence.' The whole north was in a ferment,
people every day engaging one another to go next year to the West
Indies. 'The humour,' says the primate, 'has spread like a contagious
distemper, and the people will hardly hear anybody that tries to
cure them of their madness. The worst is that it affects only
_Protestants_, and reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of