I know your hair-splitting habit; I at once anticipate your reply. An agent and a commissary are two very different things! And just as flatly I tell you, you are wrong, and that, rightly considered, the duties of both are precisely analogous, and that a general commanding an army, and an Irish landlord travelling on the Continent, present a vast number of points of similitude and resemblance. In the one case as in the other, supplies are indispensable; come what will, the forces must be fed, and if it it would be absurd for the general to halt in his march and inquire into all the difficulties of providing stores, it would be equally preposterous for the landlord to arrest his career by going into every petty grievance of his tenantry, and entering into a minute examination of the state of every cottier on his laud. Send the rations, Tom, and I 'll answer for the campaign. I don't mean to say that there are not some hardships attendant upon this. I know that to raise contributions an occasional severity must be employed; but is the fate of a great engagement to be jeopardized for the sake of such considerations? No, no, Tom. Even your spirit will recoil from such an admission as this! It is only fair to mention that these are not merely my own sentiments. Lord George Tiverton, to whom I happened to show your letter, was really shocked at the contents. I don't wish to offend you, Tom, but the expression he used was, "It is fortunate for your friend Purcell that he is not _my_ agent" I will not repeat what he said about the management of English landed property, but it is obvious that our system is not their system, and that such a thing as a landlord in _my_ position is actually unheard of. "If Ireland were subject to earthquakes," said he, "if the arable land were now and then covered over ten feet deep with lava, I could understand your agent's arguments; but wanting these causes, they are downright riddles to me." He was most anxious to obtain possession of your letter; and I learned from Mary Anne that he really meant to use it in the House, and show you up bodily as one of the prominent causes of Irish misery. I have saved you from this exposure, but I really cannot spare you some of the strictures your conduct calls for.