me, this is a distinction which in our unhappy country, is too seldom observed.  Many an agent, my Lord, has built himself a fortune out of the very necessities of his employer, and left to his children the honorable reflection that their independence originated from profligacy on the one hand and dishonesty on the other.  You see, my Lord, I find it necessary to be very plain with you, and to say, that however you may feel yourself disposed to follow the one course, I shall not rival you in the other.  I cannot become a scourge inflicted by your necessities, not to use a harsher word, upon a suffering people, who are already exhausted and provoked by an excess of severity and neglect.  Think of the predicament in which you would have me stand—­of the defence which you place, in my lips.  Should your tenantry ask me—­’why are you thus cruel and oppressive-upon us?’ what reply could I make but this—­’I am thus cruel because his lordship is profligate.  He wants money to support his-mistress, to feed her vanities and excesses, and you must endure distress and privation, that the insatiable rapacity of a courtezan may be gratified.  His lordship, too, has horses and dogs, in the welfare of which he feels a deep interest.’  ’But why does he not feel an interest in us?’ ’So he does, for are not you the persons by whose toil and labor he is enabled to support them all?’ ’So that in point of fact, we are made indirectly the agents of his crimes.  The privations which we suffer—­the sweat of our brows—­the labor of our hands, go to the-support of his wantonness, his luxury, and his extravagance!  This, then, is his interest in us?’ ’Yes—­work, that you may feed them—­starve, that his mistress may riot in wantonness; perish your children that his dogs may be fed!’ In such a position as this, my Lord, I shall never place myself, but you may easily find many that will.  The moment your necessities are known, knavery will be immediately at work, and assume its guardianship over folly.  Indeed there is a monarchical spirit in knavery, which has never yet been observed.  The knave keeps his fool, as did the kings of old, with this only difference, and a material one it is—­that whilst the fool always lived at the king’s expense, the knave lives at the fool’s.  How your lordship may feel under the new administration I cannot say, but I am inclined to think, you will not find it a distinction without a difference.  By this, of course, you understand, my Lord, that I at once resign my agency.

“And now, my Lord, in addition to many other unavailable remonstrances made by me, not only against your licentious habits as a man, but against your still more indefensible conduct as a landlord, allow me to address you in a spirit of honesty, which I fear is not easily found among the class to which I belong.  I look upon this as a duty which I owe less to you than to my country, because I am satisfied that the most important service which can be rendered to any man, not ashamed of either your habits or principles, is to lay before him a clear, but short and simple statement, of that which constitutes his duty as a landlord—­I should say an Irish landlord—­for there is a national idiosyncrasy of constitution about such a man, which appears to prevent him from properly discharging his duties, either as a friend to himself, or a just man to his tenantry.