Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have already had the honor to inform the department that I took advantage of the customary cessation of all official business, excepting such as is formal in London during the month of August, to make an excursion to the neighboring kingdom of Ireland. By reference to the archives of the legation, I find that a similar trip was made by my predecessor, Mr. Abbott Lawrence, in 1851, and that he made it the basis of an elaborate and valuable report of his observations. It may not be wholly without interest to you, if, without repeating these, I endeavor to lay before you in a brief space, my views of the changes that have taken place since he wrote, fourteen years ago.
I would first remark, however, that the respective routes which we took through the country are not altogether the same. Whilst Mr. Lawrence first went from Dublin quite across the island to Galway, then, returning to Athlóne, went south to Limerick and Cork, I went first to Cork, and, reversing the course, passed over the same ground as far as Athlone, but not farther west. On the other hand, I traversed a great part of the northern region, starting from the east side at Dublin, thence proceeding to Belfast, and returning by a circuit through Londonderry, Enniskillen, and Dundalk. None of this portion of the island was visited by him.
My general conclusion is, that whilst I concur in the justice of my predecessor’s observations as applied to the precise region through which he passed, I at the same time cannot but think they “scarcely give a correct idea of the condition of the island as a whole. So far as I could perceive, the northern portion, embracing the whole of the province of Ulster, must be judged to be both quiet and prosperous. This prosperity, mainly owing to a distribution of industry between agriculture, manufactures and commerce, has been greatly increased daring the troubles in America. This is owing to the larger consumption of linens, the chief commodity made, occasioned by the check given to the manufacture of cotton. This influence has extended beyond the process of manufacture, by at the same time stimulating the cultivation of flax, the raw material upon which it depends. I have not seen anywhere in England more indications of comfort, plenty and general good condition, than are to be found in that portion of the northern province through which I passed. Neither did I observe in the more populous towns more instances of poverty and destitution than are to be met with anywhere in corresponding places in the three kingdoms, with the exception, perhaps, of North Wales.
The same observation may be made, but in a much more qualified degree, of the central and eastern region, including Dublin and its vicinity. Although the prosperity is not so much marked, and the poverty is more apparent, the aspect of the dwellings, the cultivation of the lands, and the substantial condition of the middle classes, all combine to disprove the presence of suffering much beyond the average in most nations of the Old World.
The result is, that the wretchedness which Mr. Lawrence describes, instead of being universal, appears to be confined to one portion of the island. This extends through the south and west, and is most striking in Cork and Kerry, Galway and Tipperary. I met with the clearest evidence of it in passing through the tract between Bandon and Kenmare, especially at Bantry.
The impression which I gathered, however, is that, as compared with the picture given by Mr. Lawrence, I observed a slow but sensible improvement even here. It may come, it is true, not from increase of numbers, but is rather the [Page 562] consequence of the steady diminution which has raised the rate of wages. Mr. Lawrence mentions the price of a common agricultural laborer during the harvest of 1851, as ranging from four to five shillings per week. It was stated to me to be this season from six to eight shillings. One reason of this may be, indeed, that the crops this year are exceptionally good. To us, in America, even this maximum, which can often be earned in some portions of our country by a single day’s work, may seem painfully small. We may wonder why such a difference, when well known to the people, should not lead to a depopulation, at least so far as the able-bodied men are concerned. The chief reason why it does not is to be found only in the insurmountable obstacles presented by the state of destitution itself. The fact of the difference of wages is everywhere known. The tendency to emigration is shown by the number of advertisements posted on the walls of every town of steam packets which offer to transport people at very low prices. But even the cheapest rate is far beyond the reach of the mass of people. As a consequence, it happens that those who actually depart are persons possessing small means, or else such as obtain assistance either from the more wealthy or from relations already settled in America to enable them to cross.
One effect of this form of emigration is to leave in the midst of the community a great and festering sore of discontent. Hearing the most exciting accounts of the prospects held forth to them in America, and powerless to cross the gulf that separates them from it, the tendency is to repine at their fate, and to lay the blame of it somewhere. very naturally the government comes in as the great object. The sense of oppression is aggravated by the distinction of religious faith which marks the Roman Catholics as of the servile class almost as distinctly as the negroes are marked by difference of color with us. Whatever their priests may have done in sowing the seeds of this distemper in former times, I believe them free from all desire to disseminate it now. Emigration in such numbers is not to their taste. The old impressions, however, deriving constant support from American sympathy, retain their full force. Hence a singular result which is making itself perceptible more and more.
This is the establishment of a secret organization having its affiliations in both hemispheres. I refer to the Fenians. Of its precise nature I have not taken much trouble to inform myself; but I know enough to say, that its basis is the popular hatred of the English rule, and its object to prepare the means of seizing the first favorable opportunity to throw it off. Of the spread of this association throughout the southern and western part of Ireland there can now be no doubt. It organizes into clubs, the members of which are engaged in drilling themselves at night in secret, just as if they were preparing for some violent outbreak. The attention of the government has been roused to these proceedings, and some measures of repression have been already resorted to. The newspapers will have furnished to you the details. I had occasion to observe that nearly all of the larger towns I visited were garrisoned with more or less of British troops, not to speak of the establishment of the great camp at the Curragh. It is likewise certain that armed vessels have been stationed off the western coast to watch the possibility of assistance from abroad. An association which has called forth such energetic proceedings from a government generally so sluggish in movement must have gathered numbers sufficient at least to give it a semblance of political strength.
For my own part, whilst I have perceived the occasion for their uneasiness, I have never anticipated any difficulty that would prove serious. The disaffected class may be large; but it is poor, unarmed, and generally wanting in the elements of moral power. Any resort to violence could end only in the slaughter of thousands without the possibility of attaining a single object. The effect would be merely to play into the hands of their opponents. A far more dangerous policy would be to keep up and assiduously extend the secret disaffection, [Page 563] which might perhaps be done by the aid of American sympathy, until the procrastination of uneasiness should weary the government into radical measures to remove a constant danger by promoting the transportation of the disaffected poor at the public expense.
I am well convinced that this measure, however attempted, is the only one likely to remedy the evils that afflict the southwestern portion of this unlucky island. It would effect a permanent diminution in population, now much too numerous for the means of subsistence at their command, and yet prolific from the very fact of its poverty. In their places might be substituted stocks of cattle which might be fattened on lands which now meagerly respond to the industry of man, just as has been done in the highlands of Scotland. The great landholders would thus be enabled to enjoy the benefit of rents almost as large as they do, without the necessity of squeezing them out of the vitals of the human race. The steady extension of the liberal policy already inaugurated by the British government, which might tend gradually to wear away the remaining traces of ancient wrongs, and give a homogeneous character to the people now so much divided, could be relied upon to do the rest. In such a contingency Ireland might not be so powerful an integral part of the empire as it now seems; but, on the other hand, it would cease to be a source of real weakness. What might be lost in appearance would be gained in fact; Ireland might become what Scotland already has been made—a thoroughly loyal portion of the British dominions.
It may be long before the mode of relief here indicated will be resorted to; meanwhile the less effective and more dangerous process of voluntary emigration to America of the able-bodied of the middle classes will probably go on. The political effect of this is not inconsiderable. I am inclined to attribute it to the almost universal manifestation of ill will to the United States, in the late struggle, which took place among the better classes in this island. It was much more marked here than elsewhere. Little as they value their population, they cannot disguise the dislike they feel to the loss of them under an influence which springs from a kindred nation under different institutions. There can be no doubt that to this cause must be traced the prevalence of the same tendencies among the privileged classes in general throughout Great Britain. But the feeling was less strong in degree in proportion to the view taken of the temper of the lower classes. In England, few persons consider a serious insurrection a possibility. In Ireland, few have it ever out of their minds: conscious of the existence of the evil, and hopeless of any system of remedy, instead of thanking America for the relief which emigration gives them, they are disposed to quarrel with her because she creates in their people a desire to go.
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Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington.