REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. 443

there are others whose spirits have been soured by mis- fortunes, either brought upon them by their own im- prudence, or by accidental circumstances, who blame their country, and, With an avowal of hatred to it, expatriate themselves. It is assuredly fit, and perhaps necessary, that such men should go abroad. Fresh activity may renew in them the energy of youth; and while they spend the remainder of their days in other countries, experience fortunately never fails to convince them, that it is impossible for them to for- get, or not to love their own.

It IS vain and inconsistent to expect, that the go- vernment of any nation can relieve efl‘ectually the miseries of many hundreds of thousands of paupers, Who have been principally born in poverty, and rear- ed in the abodes of hunger, improvidence, and igno- rance. The most that we can hope is, that their suf- ferings may be ameliorated. It Arequires the gradual operation of an age at least, to change the habits, and to direct to steady purposes, the energies of a vast population.

Many circumstances have combined to produce the present alarming extent of pauperism; the remote causes are not within my province to enquire into; but inWIreland, which we may consider the very empire of mendicity, superabundant population is certainly the immediate cause of beggary. That the Irish peasantry are improvident, cannot be denied. This, again, arises from ignorance and want of education, which reconcile them to exist in a state scarcely superior to that in which the brute tribes live. Therefore, in