"sister

When Lord Baltimore, with other creatures of a country," abandoned America, though not their native land, their estates were confiscated and their profits handed over, not to the king, who did not suffer the loss, but to the people who felt the evils of this unnatural emigration.

În France, it is not merely in the code Napoleon, we shall find vigorous measures against absentees; but ages long before this great emperor and greater general was known, measures against them were put into vigorous execution. Severe enactments existed in France in the days of Edward III. The Frenchman possessing an estate in England and another in France, was obliged to surrender one of them. During the short peace with the French republic, an English nobleman is said to have claimed an estate enjoyed by his ancestors in France, and to have been informed by the French Consul, that his claim should be recognized; but only on the condition of his giving up his possessions in his own country, and becoming a resident of France.

In some of the Italian states to this day, residence is the tenure on which possessions are held. This is the way they manage the thing abroad!

ADAM SMITH, so much admired as a political economist, on the subject of taxing absentees, and particularly those from Ireland, says:

"Those who live in another country, contribute nothing by their consumption towards the support of the government of that country in which is situated the source of their revenue. If in this latter country there should be no land tax, nor any considerable duty upon the transference either of moveable or immoveable property, as is the case in Ireland, such absentees may derive a great revenue from the protection of a government, to the support of which they do not contribute a single shilling. This inequality is likely to be greatest in a country of which the government is, in some respects, subordinate and dependent upon that of some other. The people who possess the most extensive property in the dependent, will, in this case, generally choose to live in the governing country. Ireland is precisely in this situation; and we cannot, therefore, wonder that the proposal of a tax upon absentees should be so very popular in that country. It might, perhaps, be a little difficult to

ascertain either what sort or what degree of absence would subject a man to be taxed as an absentee, or at what precise time the tax should begin or end. If you except, however, this very peculiar situation, any inequality in the contribution of individuals, which can arise from such taxes, is much more than compensated by the very circumstance which occasions that inequality-the circumstance that every man's contribution is altogether voluntary, it being altogether in his power either to consume or not consume the commodity taxed."

If, in the time of Richard II., two-thirds of the profits of absentees were demanded, even with a local legislature; surely it is barbarous if no taxation be enforced in Ireland, in the absence of all legislation, which, as we have seen, in the case from Portugal, and, as we shall quickly see, from unhappy Ireland herself, has a necessary tendency to increase absenteeism fourfold; and if, in the days of Flood, he adjured them to levy taxes upon Irish absentees, otherwise the country would be ruined, are we to have no tax now, when, as Lady Morgan says, "absentees have increased in the proportion of 100 to 1," p. 137., and when hundreds of thousands of individuals are starving? And if Prior, 100 years ago, declared "that the drain to absentees would utterly destroy Ireland," when it was not £1,000,000-can prosperity ever be securedpray, can we be safe from destruction now, when this drain is about £4,000,000? Shall this state of things continue until it be too late to adopt a remedy?

We shall conclude this chapter with the following extract from Prior's important work, p. 32, as still more applicable to the present times, and deserving the consideration of every man not dead to the feelings of humanity.

"It is notorious that some have drawn out of the kingdom £100,000, some £200,000 and others above £300,000 the last 20 years; and yet the said persons have not contributed to the support of the public charges as much as the meanest persons who pay the least part of our taxes.

"It cannot be supposed that our Irish landlords, who live abroad, and consume no part of the produce or manufacture of their country, pay the least share of the duties or taxes thereof, or relieve any of its poor, whose miseries they never see, or make any improvements; who never

mean to live among us: nay, their living abroad seems to have so far alienated their affections from their country and hardened their temper towards it, that they, above all others, are remarkable for setting their estates at a rack rent, so as hardly to allow a livelihood to their poor tenants, by whom they are supported!"

"There is no country in Europe which produces and exports so great a quantity of beef, butter, tallow, hides and wool as Ireland does; and yet our common people are very poorly clothed, go barefoot half the year, and very rarely taste of that flesh meat with which we so much abound! We pinch ourselves in every article of life, and export more than we can well spare, with no other effect or advantage than to enable our gentlemen and ladies to live more luxuriously abroad."

"And they are not content to treat us thus, but add insult to ill-usage; they reproach us with our poverty, at the same time that they take away our money; and can tell us we have no diversions nor entertainments in Ireland for them, when they themselves disable us from having better, by withdrawing from us

"But it is to be hoped that our legislature will take care that those gentlemen who spend their fortunes abroad, and are thereby the greatest and almost only cause of its poverty and distress, shall not be the only persons favored and exempted from paying the taxes thereof."

"A tax of four shillings in the pound on the estates of absentees would, in all likelihood, remove the evils complained of, by stopping in a great measure those wasteful drains of our money, and would, in all respects, answer the occasions of the government; for if these gentlemen will, notwithstanding, live abroad, then a considerable fund will arise out of their estates to defray the public charges; and if they should return home, then the public revenue will increase by a greater produce in the excise and customs in proportion as the home consumption would be enlarged by the spending of so much money among us; either way the public wants would be supplied; and the people relieved." List of Absentees, p. 32.

But, to proceed in the order we have marked out, let us continue our historic sketch, and say something on the other classes of absentees, mostly of modern date.

68

CHAPTER III.

SECTION III.

Second Class of Absentees.

"Absenteeism is in fact the first cause of the misery of Ireland.'

SADLER.

THAT those "native Irish" who, to gratify individual pride, or to strengthen foreign domination, voluntarily abandoned, or abandon, their country cannot be justified, needs little argument to prove.

Although we have clearly seen that the chief cause of our national misfortunes has been the misgovernment of Ireland on the part of Great Britain; yet no rational man will say, that Irishmen have been entirely blamèless of the melancholy catastrophe that has fallen upon their country.

From an early period, too many Irishmen, forgetful of what they owed their country, or the services they could have rendered to her children, voluntarily abandoned their native land. During the dark ages of English misrule, it is certainly a difficult task to say, how many Irishmen were willing exiles; but still our chroniclers have marked out some, as guilty of that species of political suicide which consists in destroying their country.

Lady Morgan conceives that "absenteeism was not a voluntary epidemic disease in Ireland, until Dermot M'Murrogh O'Kavanagh, King of Leinster, the result of whose absenteeship was the successful invasion of Ireland by Henry the II., the crusading grants of Pope Adrian IV. and above all the fearful forfeitures followed by rebellion on one part, and by an effort at extermination on the other, which have multiplied from age to age, those possessors deserters of the soil, who have drawn over the profits raised out of Ireland, and refunded nothing.” Pp. 7, 8.

and

This lady contends, that absenteeism was not, till the inglorious period referred to, a national propensity. "In whatever particular degree of temperament or exuberance of cerebral development, (says she), the cause of this 'effect defective' lies latent, it is matter of historic fact, that though the ancient Irish were restless enough at home, never, says

Campion, wanting drift to drift a tumult.' Yet this activity, which induced them to pick a quarrel, fall in love, or any other diverting accident of that kind, never found vent in absenteeism. Where, indeed, could Irishmen go to better their condition, when all in Ireland who were not saints were kings? and many were both, while none were martyre." P. 5.

After Dermot M'Murragh O'Kavanagh King of Leinster, the next great absentee was Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, "a mighty made man, full of honor and courage," as the historians style him, who being too much an Irishman for Anglican policy, displeased the English government, and was invited by Henry the VII. to visit his court. His visit was however from accident of rather short duration. The manner in which the famous Earl of Kildare was seduced from Ireland, and how himself and his sons were all destroyed by the "benevolent English government," are detailed by Lady Morgan in her talented work on "absenteeism," which ends the tragic story of the forced absenteeism of the Geraldines.

The great Shane O'Neill was seduced also by the blandishments of Elizabeth, on account of his thirst for valor and fun, and perhaps more so to gratify his foolish vanity, to repair to the court of the virgin queen: though his delay was not long, yet it was highly injurious to his native land, and to his own interests. His base brother Matthew availing himself of his absence, usurped his rights, and assumed the chieftainship of his sept. Then followed that barbarous act of the English government, which we have already mentioned, so ruinous to his dominions and descendants.

The great O'Rourke, duped by the queen's arts, visited her voluptuous court, and as the reward of his folly, lost his life by the means of that unprincipled lady.

O'Connor Sligo by similar devices of the "virgin queen," was induced to leave Ireland; and having obtained of her majesty a promise of secure possession of his property, he was extremely active in her favor, and gained back, partly by menaces, and parting by cunning, many of the revolted clans. The great O'Donnell of Tyrconnel conceiving that O'Connor was a deserter from the common cause, marched with an army to bring him to obedience, and ravaged and destroyed his country.