I have sometimes wondered upon what motives the peerage of England were so desirous to determine our controversies; because I have been assured, and partly know, that the frequent appeals from hence have been very irksome to that illustrious body: and whoever has frequented the Painted Chamber and Courts of Requests, must have observed, that they are never so nobly filled as when an Irish appeal is under debate. The peers of Scotland, who are very numerous, were content to reside in their castles and houses in that bleak and barren climate; and although some of them made frequent journeys to London, yet I do not remember any of their greatest families, till very lately, to have made England their constant habitation before the Union; or, if they did, I am sure it was generally to their own advantage, and whatever they got was employed to cultivate and increase their own estates, and by that means enrich themselves and their country. As to the great number of rich absentees under the degree of peers, what particular ill-effects their absence may have upon this kingdom, besides those already mentioned, may perhaps be too tender a point to touch. But whether those who live in another kingdom upon great estates here, and have lost all regard to their own country, farther than upon account of the revenues they receive from it; I say, whether such persons may not be prevailed upon to recommend others to vacant seats, who have no interest here except a precarious employment, and consequently can have no views but to preserve what they have got, or to be higher advanced; this, I am sure, is a very melancholy question, if it be a question at all. But, besides the prodigious profit which England receives by the transmittal thither of two-thirds of the revenues of this old kingdom, it has another mighty advantage, by making our country a receptacle, wherein to disburden themselves of their supernumerary pretenders to offices; persons of second-rate merit in their own country, who, like birds of passage, most of them thrive and fatten here, and fly off when their credit and employments are at an end. So that Ireland may justly say, what Luther said of himself, POOR Ireland makes many rich! If, amid all our difficulties, I should venture to assert that we have one great advantage, provided we could improve it as we ought, I believe most of my readers would be long in conjecturing what possible advantage could ever fall to our share. However, it is certain that all the regular seeds of party and faction among us are entirely rooted out, and if any new ones shall spring up, they must be of equivocal generation, without any seed at all, and will be justly imputed to a degree of stupidity beyond even what we have been ever charged with upon the score of our birthplace and climate.