’This, it may be allowed, was the occasion of the poor farmers going who had their rents lately raised.  But it may be objected that was not the reason why rich farmers went, and those who had several years in beneficial leases still unexpired, who sold their bargains and removed with their effects.  But it is plain they all went for the same reason; for these last, from daily examples before them, saw the present occupiers dispossessed of their lands at the expiration of their leases, and no preference given to them; so they expected it would soon be their own case, to avoid which, and make the most of the years still unexpired, they sold, and carried their assets with them to procure a settlement in a country where they had reason to expect a permanent property.’

It is a curious fact that sentiments very similar were published by one of Cromwell’s officers about a century before.  The plea which he put forth for the Irish tenant in the dedication of his work on Ireland to the Protector, has been repeated ever since by the tenants, but repeated in vain:  Captain Bligh, the officer alluded to, said:  ’The first prejudice is, that if a tenant be at ever so great pains or cost for the improvement of his land, he doth thereby but occasion a greater rack-rent upon himself, or else invests his landlord with his cost and labour gratis, or at least lies at his landlord’s mercy for requital; which occasions a neglect of all good husbandry, to his own, the land, the landlord, and the commonwealth’s suffering.’  Now, this, I humbly conceive, might be removed, if there were a law enacted, by which every landlord should be obliged either to give him reasonable allowance for his clear improvement, or else suffer him or his to enjoy it so much longer or till he hath had a proportionable requital.’

But although Primate Boulter protested against the conduct of the landlords—­all Episcopalians—­who were ruining the church as well as the country, the established clergy, as a body, were always on the side of the oppressors.

The Test Act placed the Presbyterians, like the Papists, in the position of an inferior race.  ’In the city of Londonderry alone, which Presbyterian valour had defended, ten out of twelve aldermen, and twenty out of twenty-four burgesses, were thrust out of the corporation by that act, which placed an odious mark of infamy upon at least one-half the inhabitants of the kingdom.’  Presbyterians could not legally keep a common school.  The Edinburgh Review says:  ’All the settlements, from first to last, had the effect of making the cause of the church and the cause of the landlords really one.  During the worst days of landlord oppression it never identified itself with the interests of the people, but uniformly sustained the power and privileges of the landlords.’