In Belfast we continued about 3 weeks, in which time we had full opportunity of making every neceffary obfervation. This great town, containing near twenty thousand inhabitants, together with the country extending around it on three fides for feveral miles to an extent of at leaft 8 miles in length, and 4 miles in its greatest breadth, form but one parish, and contain but one church of the eftablished religion. This is a large and elegant building of brick ornamented with hewn ftone coins, urns, and a bal. luftrade round the roof. The entrance is by a grand portico of corinthian columns. The fteeple is highly ornamented, but has no bells. The infide work is of mahogany very neat, and the organ remarkably good.

Taylors (one female) Tanners and Curriers

Weavers (fix females) Watchmakers Wheelwrights

Sundry other trades Tobacco fpinners, giving employ-7 ment to 20 children of both fexes, (decrease in 9 years, including children employed, 165: the confequence of impolitie revenue laws) Publicans under licence for fpirits and ftrong beer, being one to every 17th houfe: a great $167 number of them perfons who

have trades

By the above it appears, the town and fuburbs are encreased in lefs than 10 years,

Houfes Inhabitants

1081 5215

As BALLIMACARRET is only feparated from the town of Belfaft by the Long Bridge, the following view of its progreffive improvement is given :

In 1781. Houfes Males 195 Females 224

In 1791.

96

Houfes
Males 596
Females 612

279

419

1,208

One of the prefbyterian meetinghoufes, a new and large building of a circular form is as elegant a room as ever I was in. Behind it, in the fame yard, is another new meeting-houfe, 70 feet by 50 in the clear, very neatly finished. In another enclofure feparated by a wall is a third meeting-houfe, a more ancient building than either of those I have mentioned, and at a little diftance a fourth meeting-houfe belonging to that clafs of prefbyterians called feceders. A fifth congregation has lately been formed, for whom an elegant houfe Co feet by 40 in the clear is building. There has likwife been lately erected by fubfcription among the inhabitants of every denomination a Romish chapel,

whofe

whofe congregation is not very large in this town.

rooms.

The exchange is a neat building, with a good coffee-room, and over it a large and fuperb affembly-room 60 feet by 30, with fuitable card-room and fupperThe market-houfe is an old fabrick, which requires to be rebuilt. Hitherto the flesh market has been held in the ftreet, but a very neat fet of fhambles are erecting. The flesh market appeared to us very fmall for fo great a town. The white linen-hall was built in 1783 by fubfcription of the inhabitants of Belfaft; it is a plain brick building upwards of 300 feet fquare, and two ftories high, containing near 400 rooms, of which not more than half the number have been finished, but thofe feem fully fufficient for the business at any time carried on there. Oppofite the linen-hall, a new ftreet, 80 feet wide, has been opened, the buildings of which are large, elegant and uniform; the ftreet is well paved, and very neatly flagged at the fides. It would have added much to the beauty of this ftreet, if an attick ftory, and parapets had

been added to the houses.

The custom-houfe is a finall building; from the extent of whch a ftranger would not imagine that Belfaft was a place of fuch great bufinefs, as it is efteemed, any more than from the fmall number of veffels to be seen in the harbour, and the little concourfe in the ftreets; the quays likewife are fmall, narrow and inconvenient, not at all comparable to thofe of many towns of lefs confequence; yet the inhabitants reckon this the third town in trade and confequence in Ireland; in population it is but the fifth. The old erroneous ftatement of the number of houfes in Ireland as publifhed in Watfon's almanack, and quoted in the Philofophical Survey of the fouth of Ireland, Ferrar's hiftory of Limerick, &c. &c. leads many people aftray in regard to the population of many towns in IreTand, making the number in Belfaft in 1767 to be 5295, when according to the moft exact enumeration they did not exceed 2000, and thofe in Dublin 13,194, when they certainly must have been dou ble that number. I fhould here query upon what principles can be reconciled

the account contained in said almanack, that from 1754 to 1788, the county of Dublin including the city, fhould be the only part of Ireland continually decreafing in population, when at the fame time, by the fame account, the other counties have encreased in population about one third?

The exports of Belfaft in linen cloth are great; there is likewise a small export of beef, pork, butter, hides, &c. but its principal trade confifts of imports, which certainly are very great, the annual cuftoms exceeding £100,000, and when the new canal is finished to Loughneagh these muft certainly increase, as Belfaft will then have the fame advantage as Newry, an inland communication by water with five very populous counties.

With the population of Belfaft, the trade and manufactures have proportionably encreafed, as appear from the lift before mentioned; two glafs houses, and fome iron founderies, as well as two banks have been alfo eftablished within, that period.

The government of Belfaft is entirely vefted in a fovereign and 12 burgeffes," who alone have the privilege of voting for the two members who are faid to reprefent the town in parliament; few of thefe burgeffes refide in the town, and this little corporation is entirely under the influence of an absentee landlord. Two thoufand reputable proteftant traders living in Belfast have nothing to do in its government, or in the choice of its reprefentatives, yet fo executive are the inhabitants, according to their legal ability, that I dare venture to affirm, a better regulated town in the British dominions does not exift. Without an expenfive police eftablishment, or a mercenary watch, the ftreets are kept perfectly quiet, and a robbery or riot is hardly ever heard of; the voluntary af fociation of the people for mutual defence in fupport of the laws of their country, is here found to be more effectual than the moft expenfive police under the controul of hirelings. The fovereigns, tho' quite independent of the people, and under the direction of the landlord or his agent, being generally men of fome account, are very affiftant to the inha

Bb 2

bitant

bitants in their exertions to keep peace and good order. The markets are well regulated, and though it has been lately difcovered, that the inhabitants cannot be taxed for lighting the fireets, yet they are well lit in the winter feafon from a voluntary fubfcription.

Before we leave Belfaft we muft mention the poor-house, a large building adorned with a tall fpire, in which the parith poor are maintained with an admirable economy, very few beggars being ever feen in the streets.

In fhart this town is by far the greateft in the province of Ulfter, and one of the beft in Ireland. The inhabitants are very wealthy, and live in a genteel ftyle. Balls and affemblies are very frequent, and a very fpacious theatre is now building. Two news-papers are 'printed here, and bookfellers fhops are numerous. Yet from one trifling circunftance, a ftranger might imagine this a town of lefs confequence than mary in the fouth, that there are no public ftands of fedan chairs, nor did we ever fee any more than one of thofe chairs while we continued in the town, and that was the only one we faw in the North.

During our continuance in this neighbourhod, we rode 8 miles along the fhore to fee the a cient town of Carrickfergus, formerly the metropolis of this part of Ireland, and ftill a county of itself, in which likewife the affizes of the county of Antrim are held. It has the appearance of being a very poor place of little or no bufinefs, there not being even a fishing boat at its quay. Here is a large old caftle, garrifoned by twelve men, under the command of a fergeant. The feffions houfe is a good building of hewn ftone. The church is a curious old building, in the form of a crofs in the gothic ftyle, and about 150 feet long. In a fmall chapel feparated by a grate from the body of the church is a grand monument belonging to the Donegall family, and several banners and trophies. The fteeple is ornamented with a tall modern fpire. There appear to be about 5 or Coo houfes in the town; but how the inhabitants make out a livelihood we could not learn. We were well accommodated at our Inn at a very cheap rate,

having at dinner and fupper plenty of good fith. This little excurfion was very pleasant.

Next day we went to fee the feat of Lord Dungannon at Belvoir, two miles from Beltaft. The houfe is large and elegant, beautifully fituated on a rifing ground by the river fide, in an extenfive and well planted park. We dined at a neat little inn in the village of Newton Breda.

Having continued in the town and neighbourhood of Belfait about 3 weeks, on the 14th of July we rode 12 miles over the mountains to Antrim, a town of little apparent confequence, tho' capable of improvement; it is fituated in a fine country on the borders of Lough Neagh.

Two miles beyond Antrim we faw the fine feat of the Rt. Hon. John O'Neil, called Shanes-caftle; it is beautifully fituated on the very edge of the lake, in a park of great extent. Returning to Antrim we fpent one night there, and next morning rode 7 miles thro' a fine country having a view of the lake the whole way to Glenavy a pretty little village, and from thence 10 miles to Lurgan. Thefe laft 10 miles were the most pleafing we ever travelled, tho' the road was extremely bad. A more populous, better planted or more highly improved country we never faw. No gentlemen's feats indeed were to be seen, but a very great number of neat little farm houfes furrounded with fields well cultivated and well planted, prefented the appearance of a fubftantial yeomanry (very uncommon in Ireland) living on their own labour in a most comfortable plain manner. What a pity that the roads are fo intolerably bad! Mentioning this fine country to a friend in Lurgan, we were informed that our obfervations were juft with regard to the comfortable fituation of the farmers in the country we paffed thro';--that it was moftly divided into fmall farms of 30, 40 or 50 acres, which had been formerly held at a low rent, and the holders by induftry had for many years lived in the moft comfortable manner;but that now their leafes were almost all expired, and the landlord, an absentee called a nobleman, of overgrown fortune, who befides a very confiderable eftate of

perhaps

perhaps twenty thousand pounds per annum, from having formerly held many lucrative finecures under government, and making the moft of certain opportunities, had accumulated a fum of about feven hundred thousand pounds, could not on any account whatever be prevailed on to renew them; however, that at prefent the old poffeffors were permitted to hold their own improvements as tenants at will, upon paying an advanced rent. That the rents fhould be reasonably advanced is only agreeable to juftice; that the natural rife of the value of land in its unimproved ftate fhould be paid the landlord is certainly his equitable due; but what man of spirit could fubmit to be reduced from the ftate of an independept freeholder to a vaffal, holding his property at will, and at the abfolute difpofal of the landlord or his agent? The roads being fo bad proceeded from an inceffant draught of lime-ftone, which wherever found in the eftate, is fold to ftrangers, inftead of the tenants being permitted to make use of it, and tho' this confiderably encreases the landlord's revenue, he refufes to contribute any thing to the repair of the roads. In fhort we difcovered, that the tenants in this fine eftate laboured under fo much oppreffion from the avaricious difpofition of this abfentee, and a man after his own heart, whom he had raised to the agency, as to oblige many of them to feek habitations elfewhere, and will, it is probable, in a few years reduce this beautiful country to a defert inhabited by cattle only, as is the cafe of the fine lands in the fouth.

Lurgan is a pretty good town, tho' from a number of cabins being interfperced among the good houfes, and the ftreet being too wide, it has but a poor appearance. The church with a tall fpire is a good building, and the deinefne of the Right Hon. W. Brownlow is worth vifiting. But what pleafed us moft, were two charity schools, in which all the poor children who can attend are inftructed in reading and writing, and the girls in fpinning and knitting. I think it would be an improvement in thefe fchools to have the younger boys taught to knitt. Some hundreds of children attend thefe fchools daily; and

at ftated times an examination of the children is publickly held, at which the principal inhabitants of the town attend. Premiums of bibles and fpinning wheels are given according to merit; and as the fubfcriptions are more than fufficient to answer thefe ends, the annual furplus is expended in cloathing as many of the children as it will afford. The good effect of thefe fchools is already confpicuous from the decent appearance, and fober behaviour of the children of the lower clafs in the town and neighbourhood. An attempt was made fome time ago to eftablish fchools on a fimilar plan in Lifburn, but from the want of encouragement of the landlord and principal inhabitants the defign dropped.

From Lurgan we rode nine miles moftly across a bog, and paffed two ferries into the county of Tyrone, we proceeded four miles more to Stewartstown, and from thence to Dungannon, an ugly irregular town, but which feems improving, many good houfes being lately built there, and others now building; among the reft the eldeft fon of lord Welles landlord of the town has built a very handsome house here; this family feem to give good encouragement to the inhabitants of the'r eftate, improvements going on as rapidly in the neighbouring country, as in the town. A large and elegant house has also been built for a free chool, as it is called, that is a fchool, for the keeping of which, and teaching boys at their parents expence, the mafter has eight hundred pounds per annum. Were the many

great endowments of this kind in Ireland, properly applied, according to the original intention, they would be fufficient to pay for the education of all the poor children in the nation; but as they are at prefent managed they ferve but as comfortable fettlements for a few of the clergy of one particular denomination of the people, to fatisfy whofe neceffities the tenth of the produce of the labour of the people of every denomination is found infufficient. But the moft magnificent building in Dungannon is the houfe of one Wilcocks a quaker; this is a large lofty building of hewn ftone, highly ornamented on the outfide, and it is to be fuppofed the flyle of the infide correl

ponds