Statefmen of fuch mischievous,defperate projects as Lord Minto's, which, if at all practicable, would be fubverfive of the Conftitution in Church and State, in both countries, may not be made a powerful objection to that most effective of all measures, which can be ever propofed for the aggrandizement of the British Empire, and the mutual benefit of both countries-an INCORPORATING UNION.

PATRICK DUIGENAN,

Dublin, September 20th, 1799,

P. S. My original design was, to prefent to the British Ministry, and to the English nation in general, a fair and juft picture of thePrefentPoliticalState of Ireland; which feems to have, for fome time past, been exposed to their view in very falfe and deceptive colours. I conceived that fuch a performance might be of ufe in the arrangement of measures, which muft precede and introduce an Incorporating Union of the two nations. I am a man attached to no party, unless my fteady adherence to the principles of the Conftitution of the British Empire in Church and State, be confidered as attachment to a party. I am neither placed nor penfioned, but I am a loyal Protestant subject of his Majefty. I have explicitly expreffed my opinion respecting an Incorporating Union, though I have offered noargumentson the question, as it has been already fully canvaffed inmany able publications broth in England and Ireland; amongst which, I partielly recommend to the perufal of fuch as are defirous l gooď information on the fubject, two pamphlets: the oven

taining 'The Speech of William Smith, Efq. on the Debate of the Question of Union in the Irish Houfe of Commons,' particularly that part of it which relates to the Competency of Parliament: the other, the fame Gentleman's Review' of the pamphlet containing The Speech of the Right Honourable the Speaker of the Irish Houfe of Commons' infinitely the most formidable adverfary of an Union, and one of the ableft men in Ireland. Thefe two pamphlets I look upon as capital performances. In the latter, the author, who is a young man, has combated with great vigour the arguments of the well-informed veteran politician.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

Calculation of the Number of Inhabitants in Ireland.

SIR WILLIAM PETTY furveyed the whole kingdom

of Ireland with amazing accuracy (as may be seen by his Map preferved in the Surveyor-general's office), fhortly before the Restoration in 1660, by order of the then Irish Government. In his Political Anatomy' he states the whole population of Ireland in 1672, fixteen years antecedent to the commencement of the Revolution war, to amount to one million one hundred thousand.

Dean Swift, in his fecond Drapier's Letter, published in 1724, ftates, that the inhabitants of Ireland, by the largest computation, then amounted to one million and a half only.

In 1732, an enumeration of the inhabitants of Ireland was made by order of Government, and they were found to be under two millions.

Mr. Bushe, a member of the Irish Houfe of Commons, has given an account of the number of houses in Ireland,

calculatol

calculated from the hearth-money books in 1791; with other documents for enumerating the inhabitants of Ireland.

Mr. Chalmers, from the documents furnished by Mr. Bufhe, calculates the number of inhabitants of Ireland in 1791 to amount to four millions two hundred thousand; and from thence deduces, that they have been nearly quadrupled in the courfe of one hundred years fince the Revolution. (See Chalmers's Eftimate,' page 222,223.)

With this laft calculation I cannot agree, for the following reafons:

ift. Mr. Chalmers, who has taken great pains to afcertain the population of England and Wales, computes that population at the time of the Revolution to have amounted to nearly feven millions(Eftimate,page 58 ;) and the population in the year 1794 to amount to nearly eight millions and a half(Eftimate, page 220): and confequently, that England and Wales have increafed in population only one million and a half in one hundred years. In his quotation from Mr. Wallace it is laid down, that the diftreffed circumftances of mankind difabling them to provide for a family, check very greatly the increafe of population (Estimate, page 221): and he ftates, that when England was a country of fhepherds and warriors, fhe was inconfiderable in numbers; that when manufacturers found their way into the country, when hufbandmen gradually acquired greater skill, and when the spirit of commerce at length actuated all, people, as it were, grew out of the earth, amidft convulfions, famine, and warfare; that England can scarcely be regarded as a manufacturing

and

and commercial country at the Revolution, when contrafted with her prefent profperity in manufacture and trade (Estimate, page 212, 213.) Ireland, during the whole period from the Revolution to the present day, when manufactures and commerce are little more than in their dawn, that dawn itself only commencing in the year 1782, when the shackles on her commerce were taken off, may be faid to have been a country of shepherds and warriors. The whole kingdom, part of the province of Ulfter excepted, in which the linen manufacture has for fome years flourished(and which alfo has been doubled in the last ten years), being almost deftitute of agriculture and manufactures, and inhabited chiefly by herdsmen ; a peafantry, as poor and miferable as any in Europe, for want of employment, and always furnishing the armies of foreign Potentates, as well as thofe of Great Britain, with multitudes of foldiers, and all foreign nations, particularly America, with crowds of emigrants: England, at the fame time, conftantly increafing in manufactures and commerce, and her people fo fully employed, that the nation has frequently complained of want of hands to execute the various works in which they were engaged. From all which, I think it not only improbable, but impoffible, that Ireland can have quadrupled her population fince the Revolution, and that England and Wales should not, in the fame space of time, have increased their population even by a fourth part.

2dly. I think the calculation made by Mr. Chalmers, from the documents afforded by Mr. Bufhe, of the numbers in each house, is too great; in particular, the calculation of fix perfons to a houfe of one hearth: not more than four, if fo many, fhould be allowed. The

inhabitants