Food and Subsistance in other Countries? How many Thousands never return again to us, no more than Prisoners to their Confinement, when they've broke loose from their hard Fare, and their Fetters. I do not exaggerate in the least; our Numbers, till we can give them Business at home, are as much a Curse and a Burthen as too large a Garrison in a besieged Town that wants Provisions: If, as political Writers agree, the true Interests of any Country consists in the Prosperity not of some, but of all the People in it, then I am sure _Ireland_, with her boasted Numbers, is in a bad way; as all her poor Popish Natives, or in other Words, three-fourths of her swarming Inhabitants, have neither Houses, Cloaths, Work, Food, or Fire. This is a dismal self-evident Truth, that demands the serious Consideration of every Irishman, that can think, or can learn to think. At the same Time, our Nobility and Gentry set their Lands excessively high, get their Rents paid to a Penny, have as little fear of Wars or Taxes as of Famines, and live as well (rambling, and squandering their Fortunes all over the World) as any People whatever, without one uneasy Thought, as to the Circumstances of those Crowds of their Countrymen that are starving here. The Truth is, few Men are sick of other People's Ailments; and as these honest Gentlemen find themselves quite at Ease, they can't think others are in Misery. It puts me in mind, _Tom_, of the famous _La Bruyere_'s Account of a great Statesman in _France_, who sign'd an Arret, that wou'd have starv'd some Millions of People; however, says he, in his sarcastical way, he is to be excused, for how cou'd he, with his Stomach full of Meat, and his Head fuming with Wine, have any notion of a whole Province perishing with Hunger? In other Countries, where some Care is taken to employ their Hands, and secure them Necessaries of Life, within the reach of their Labour, their Numbers are their Strength and their Happiness; but here where nobody thinks for us, and we are too sottish or desperate to think for ourselves; our Numbers only increase our Misfortunes, like Lice on a diseased and famish'd Beggar. Our common _Irish_ are cloathed with Rags, that wou'd disgrace a Dunghill in _Holland_; they live five Months in the Year without Food, unless you will call Potatoes and Salt by that Name; nay, they live without Houses, unless Holes twice as big, and twice as dirty, as an _English_ Hogsty, deserve that Title, which they Build too, just for a Year, as Birds build their Nests, and then away to another Place in the Spring. And to brag of our Numbers, in such deplorable Circumstances, is just as rational, as for a Miller to brag of having Thousands of Rats in his Mill, tho' they are starving and thieving, and ready to eat up one another, for a little more Room and Plunder.