receive them; the people here, being likewise left to themselves, unite as one man, resolving they will have nothing to do with his ware.  By this plain account of the fact it is manifest, that the King and his ministry are wholly out of the case, and the matter is left to be disputed between him and us.  Will any man therefore attempt to persuade me, that a Lord Lieutenant is to be dispatched over in great haste before the ordinary time, and a Parliament summoned by anticipating a prorogation, merely to put an hundred thousand pounds into the pocket of a sharper, by the ruin of a most loyal kingdom.

But supposing all this to be true.  By what arguments could a Lord Lieutenant prevail on the same Parliament which addressed with so much zeal and earnestness against this evil, to pass it into a law?  I am sure their opinion of Wood and his project is not mended since the last prorogation; and supposing those methods should be used which detractors tell us have been sometimes put in practice for gaining votes.  It is well known that in this kingdom there are few employments to be given, and if there were more, it is as well known to whose share they must fall.

But because great numbers of you are altogether ignorant in the affairs of your country, I will tell you some reasons why there are so few employments to be disposed of in this kingdom.  All considerable offices for life here are possessed by those to whom the reversions were granted, and these have been generally followers of the chief governors, or persons who had interest in the Court of England.  So the Lord Berkeley of Stratton[7] holds that great office of master of the rolls, the Lord Palmerstown[8] is first remembrancer worth near 2000_l. per ann._ One Dodington[9] secretary to the Earl of Pembroke,[10] begged the reversion of clerk of the pells worth 2500_l._ a year, which he now enjoys by the death of the Lord Newtown.  Mr. Southwell is secretary of state,[11] and the Earl of Burlington[12] lord high treasurer of Ireland by inheritance.  These are only a few among many others which I have been told of, but cannot remember.  Nay the reversion of several employments during pleasure are granted the same way.  This among many others is a circumstance whereby the kingdom of Ireland is distinguished from all other nations upon earth, and makes it so difficult an affair to get into a civil employ, that Mr. Addison was forced to purchase an old obscure place, called keeper of the records of Bermingham’s Tower of ten pounds a year, and to get a salary of 400_l._ annexed to it,[13] though all the records there are not worth half-a-crown, either for curiosity or use.  And we lately saw a favourite secretary descend to be master of the revels, which by his credit and extortion he hath made pretty considerable.[14] I say nothing of the under-treasurership worth about 8000_l_. a year, nor the commissioners of the revenue, four of whom generally live in England; For I think none of these are granted in reversion.  But the test is, that I have known upon occasion some of these absent officers as keen against the interest of Ireland as if they had never been indebted to her for a single groat.