sufficient credit to procure necessaries to subsist or till their
ground. They never had anything to store, all was from hand to mouth;
so one or two bad crops broke them. Others found their stock dwindling
and decaying visibly, and so removed before all was gone, while they
had as much left as would pay their passage, and had little more than
what would carry them to the American shore.

'This, it may be allowed, was the occasion of the poor farmers going
who had their rents lately raised. But it may be objected that was not
the reason why rich farmers went, and those who had several years in
beneficial leases still unexpired, who sold their bargains and removed
with their effects. But it is plain they all went for the same reason;
for these last, from _daily examples before them_, saw the present
occupiers dispossessed of their lands at the expiration of their
leases, and no preference given to them; so they expected it would
soon be their own case, to avoid which, and make the most of the years
still unexpired, they sold, and carried their assets with them to
procure a settlement in a country where they had reason to expect a
permanent property.'

It is a curious fact that sentiments very similar were published by
one of Cromwell's officers about a century before. The plea which
he put forth for the Irish tenant in the dedication of his work on
Ireland to the Protector, has been repeated ever since by the tenants,
but repeated in vain: Captain Bligh, the officer alluded to, said:
'The first prejudice is, that if a tenant be at ever so great pains or
cost for the improvement of his land, he doth thereby but occasion a
greater rack-rent upon himself, or else invests his landlord with his
cost and labour _gratis_, or at least lies at his landlord's mercy for
requital; which occasions a neglect of all good husbandry, to his own,