“Examine all the eastern towns of Ireland, and you will trace this horrid instrument of destruction, in defacing of Churches, and particularly in destroying whatever was ornamental, either within or without them.  We see in the several towns a very few houses scattered among the ruins of thousands, which he laid level with their streets; great numbers of castles, the country seats of gentlemen then in being, still standing in ruin, habitations for bats, daws, and owls, without the least repairs or succession of other buildings.  Nor have the country churches, as far as my eye could reach, met with any better treatment from him, nine in ten of them lying among their graves and God only knows when they are to have a resurrection.  When I passed from Dundalk where this cursed usurper’s handy work is yet visible, I cast mine eyes around from the top of a mountain, from whence I had a wide and a waste prospect of several venerable ruins.  It struck me with a melancholy, not unlike that expressed by Cicero in one of his letters which being much upon the like prospect, and concluding with a very necessary reflection on the uncertainty of things in this world, I shall here insert a translation of what he says:  ’In my return from Asia, as I sailed from AEgina, towards Megara, I began to take a prospect of the several countries round me.  Behind me was AEgina; before me Megara; on the right hand the Piraeus; and on the left was Corinth; which towns were formerly in a most flourishing condition; now they lie prostrate and in ruin.

“’Thus I began to think with myself:  Shall we who have but a trifling existence, express any resentment, when one of us either dies a natural death, or is slain, whose lives are necessarily of a short duration, when at one view I beheld the carcases of so many great cities?’ What if he had seen the natives of those free republics, reduced to all the miserable consequences of a conquered people, living without the common defences against hunger and cold, rather appearing like spectres than men?  I am apt to think, that seeing his fellow creatures in ruin like this, it would have put him past all patience for philosophic reflection.

“As for my own part, I confess, that the sights and occurrences which I had in this my last journey, so far transported me to a mixture of rage and compassion, that I am not able to decide, which had the greater influence upon my spirits; for this new cant, of a rich and flourishing nation, was still uppermost in my thoughts; every mile I travelled, giving me such ample demonstrations to the contrary.  For this reason, I have been at the pains to render a most exact and faithful account of all the visible signs of riches, which I met with in sixty miles’ riding through the most public roads, and the best part of the kingdom.  First, as to trade, I met nine cars loaden with old musty, shrivelled hides; one car-load of butter; four jockeys driving eight horses, all out of case; one cow and calf driven by a man and his