[p. 30] The ride to Bandon and Clonikilty afforded us little amusement. Both these towns are larger than we had expected but their magnitude depends greatly on rows of mud built cottages. The population seems very great and an Englishman is struck with the number of persons idling about the streets in almost all the Irish Towns.
We slept at Clonikilty.
The intelligence we obtained of the roads, induced us to prefer the road by Dunmanway [p. 31] to Bantry rather than that thro Skibbereen. The road we took was very rough and rocky — it is very wide & being at this time (after a very dry season) without vegetation, made a very respectable appearance at a distance but disappointed us sadly on a nearer inspection.
All the country from Cork to Dunmanway presents an undulating surface, rising by gentle swells to a considerable height — not so great however as to exclude Cultivation — it is mostly under Corn, but the want of trees and Hedges makes the Landscape dreary and uninteresting. There are a few woody spots about Gentlemen's houses; otherwise, I believe, there is not a tree in the Country. As we approach the latter place the eye is amused with a range of bold & rocky mountains on which wood is not so much a stranger. Here too, we saw the first bogs of any extent that we observed in our passage thru an island which we had learnt to consider as the very region of bogs. We had passed some small ones, but they seemed to be rapidly diminishing.
The cultivation of Ireland has been advancing within these few years with astonishing rapidity. [p. 32] Is it not possible that it may increase too fast? The increase of cultivation & consequently of consumable produce will be attended with an increase of population. But I confess I think it possible that it may have proceeded too rapidly & that the country will pay severely and perhaps is paying for the quick increase of consumable produce. If care be taken to dispell the ignorance & increase the comforts of the labouring class, the evil I dread will probably be obviated, but if this is not the case there is danger that the habits favourable to a rapid increase of population will continue when the annual produce of the country can increase no longer & that Ireland will be overburdened by a vast population, starving, ignorant & consequently extremely discontented. Nor perhaps ought we to expect any great exertions on the part of the gentlemen of the country on this head — the Irish are generous & spirited but these qualities have hitherto in general found occupation in another direction. The advantages arising from cultivating the soil are much more obvious than those accruing from improving the mind of the people. [Note, pp. 174–76]
Since this
The situation of the lower classes of Irish is in many respects considerably different from that of similar classes in England. They are generally separated by a difference of language & religion & an Englishman feels a degree of pride in English laws and an attachment to them which an Irishman cannot feel; they are to him the laws of a foreign nation, he has felt them in many instances most oppressively so, & he is still perfectly aware that a foreign dominion can alone preserve the present degraded state of his religion. Nor is the effect of the very unjust laws concerning the catholics yet passed away tho the laws themselves have been repealed55. They have left a marked impression on the manner and habits of the people. They have taught the catholic to survey the protestants with hatred & envy. They have taught the protestants (a still more lasting feeling) to view the catholics with a mixture of contempt and abhorrence. For my part I wish that the remaining laws marking the civil distinctions of the two religions should be abolished because I think a man's conduct & not his religious opinions ought alone to determine his fitness for civil employments; because I think these remaining differences tend strongly to keep up the degrading remembrance of those which have been repealed; and because I think they are made the means of alienating the minds of thousands of Irish from this country by a party whose open or secret wish it is to separate the two nations — a party which I believe owes its remaining strength and consistency entirely to the disabilities of the catholics, [p. 32 contd.] When a gentleman improves his own estate the benefit to himself is at least as great and as conspicuous as that to the public. I do not mean to deny that the truest patriotism is very likely to lead a country gentleman into this line of conduct. But it is also the line of his own interest, & politicians have hardly yet been brought to acknowledge that the [p. 33] prosperity of a country is not to be estimated entirely by its wealth or its population but by the individual happiness and Virtue of its inhabitants.