ancestor of the celebrated Sir Henry Pottinger. In 1758 the population
was 8,549; in 1821, it was 37,000; in 1831, it was 53,000; in 1841, it
had increased to 75,000; in 1851, it amounted to 103,000; and the last
census shows it to be 121,602. About 1,500 houses are built annually
in the borough, and the present population is estimated at 150,000.
The rateable property is more than 394,000 l. The sum of 560,000 l.
has been spent on the harbour improvements, to which is to be added
250,000 l. for building new docks. I remember the quays when they were
small, irregular, inconvenient, dirty, and when the channel worked its
doubtful course through shifting masses of liquid mud, at low water.
Now there are quays which extend in a line about a mile, covered
with spacious sheds for the protection of the goods being shipped
and unshipped. There are docks of all sorts, and great shipbuilding
establishments standing on ground created out of the floating chaos
of mud. 'Year by year,' as one of its poets has said, 'Belfast is
changing its aspect and overstepping its former boundaries, climbing
the hill-side, skirting the river margin, and even invading the sea's
ancient domain.

'Ambition's mistress of the fertile land,
Shuts out the ocean and usurps the strand.'

Among the 'usurpations' is Queen's Island, a beautiful people's
park, standing in the midst of the Lough. The people of Belfast have
effected all these vast improvements from their own resources,
without a shilling from the lord of the soil, without any help from
Government, except a loan of 100,000 l. from the Board of Works.
Belfast is the 'linen capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the
'cotton capital.' The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there
by Strafford, and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the