[25] The following story is told in Pue’s Occurrences, in May, 1740:—­A broguemaker had been committed to Dungannon jail for some offence, but managed to make his escape.  He was pursued and searched for in vain.  The jailer gave him up as lost when, one day, after being at large during five weeks, he presented himself at the jail to the astonishment of the jailer, who questioned him as to the cause of his return.  He replied, that he had travelled to Dublin, and had gone through a great part of Munster, but finding nowhere such good quarters as he had in Dungannon jail, he came back.

[26] On the passing of this bill Sir Charles E. Trevelyan remarks with quiet severity:—­“There is no mention of grants or loans; but an Act was passed by the Irish Parliament, 1741 (15 George II, cap. 8), for the more effectual securing the payment of rents and preventing frauds by tenants.”—­Irish Crisis, p. 13.

[27] Matthew O’Connor’s History of the Irish Catholics, p. 222.

[28] The Judges held the assizes in Tuam instead of Galway this year, on account of the fever in the latter place.—­Dutton’s Galway.

[29] The Groans of Ireland, in a letter to an M.P., 1741.  The estimated population in 1731 was 2,010,221.  Rutty says it was computed, perhaps, with some exaggeration, that one-fifth of the people died of famine and pestilence.  This agrees with the higher estimate above.

[30] Philo-Ierne, London, May 20, 1755.  Reprinted in Cork with the author’s name, Richard Bocklesly, Esq., M.D.  It is hardly necessary to say that the “people” referred to in the above extract mean merely the English colony in Ireland.

[31] Ibid., pp. 5 & 6—­He seems to use the word “dairy” here in a sense somewhat different from its present application.

[32] The Bristol barrel contained 22 stones—­one stone more than the Irish barrel.

[33] A disease called the Curl appeared in the potato in Lancashire in 1764.  It was in that Shire the potato was first planted in England; and we are told the Curl appeared in those districts of it in which it was first planted.  The nature of the disease is indicated by its name.  The stalk became discoloured and stunted almost from the beginning of its growth; it changed its natural healthy green for a sickly greenish brown, the leaves literally curling like those of that species of ornamental holly known as the “screw-leaved.”  The plant continued to grow, and even to produce tubers, but they never attained any considerable size, and from their inferior quality could not be used for food.  The Curl appeared in Ireland about the year 1770, where it caused much loss, as we find a large quantity of grain was imported for food about that period.  Isolated cases of the Curl were not unfrequent in this country long after it ceased to cause alarm to the farmer.  I have seen many such cases, especially where potatoes were planted on lea.  On examining the set beneath a plant affected with Curl, I invariably found it had not rotted away as was usual with those sets that produced healthy plants.  There were as many remedies propounded for the Curl as for the blight of 1846-7 with a like result—­none of them were of any use.