"Then it was that Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the year 1774, determined to exert himself in pushing on a manufactory which promised to be of such essential service to the whole country. To do this with effect, he saw that it was necessary to take it entirely into his own hands. He could lend money to the manager to enable him to go on, but that would be at best hazardous, and could never do it in the complete manner in which he wished to establish it. In this period of consideration, Mr. Fitzmaurice was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage in all the hazard, irksomeness, etc., of commerce, so totally different from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer, but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner that was possible. In the first place he took every means of making himself a complete master of the business; he went through various manufactures, inquired into the minutiae, and took every measure to know it to the bottom. This he did so repeatedly and with such attention in the whole progress, from spinning to bleaching and selling, that he became as thorough a master of it as an experienced manager; he has wove linen, and done every part of the business with his own hands. As he determined to have the works complete, he took Mr. Stansfield the engineer, so well known for his improved saw-mills, into his pay. He sent him over to Ballymoat in the winter of 1774, in order to erect the machinery of a bleach mill upon the very best construction; he went to all the great mills in the north of Ireland to inspect them, to remark their deficiencies, that they might be improved in the mills he intended to erect. This knowledge being gained, the work was begun, and as water was necessary, a great basin was formed by a dam across a valley, by which means thirty-four acres were floated, to serve as a reservoir for dry seasons, to secure plenty at all times." August 30. Rode to Rosshill, four miles off, a headland that projects into the Bay of Newport, from which there is a most beautiful view of the bay on both sides; I counted thirty islands very distinctly, all of them cultivated under corn and potatoes, or pastured by cattle. At a distance Clare rises in a very bold and picturesque style; on the left Crow Patrick, and to the right other mountains. It is a view that wants nothing but wood.