The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-23 00:00:00

INCUMBERED .ES'T'ATES.

TO THE EDITOR OF " SAUNDERS'S NRWS LETTER."
Mount Baylee, County Clare.
Sir,—Having heard and read a great deal about
tho English Solicitor-General's Bill respecting in-
cumbered estates in Ireland, permit me through the
medium of your paper to offer a few suggestions
thereon.

That English lawyers are now at the eleventh hour
most anxious to do all they know ho iv to do for Ire-
land I am quite willing to admit; however, it unfor-
tunately often happens that where we are most dis-
posed to confer benefits a want of knowledge of the
mode in which the boon is to be conferred renders
our good intentions nugatory, particularly where
an English view is taken of an Irish question. Of
this we had a laughable instance when Sir E. Sug-
den was Chancellor here. The whole rural popula-
tion was in arms at the time of the Terry Alt dis-
turbances in the south of Ireland—ail law, order, and
even common decency, was set at naught in the fair
province of Munster, and a Cabinet Council was
held at the Castle to devise what was the best mode of
cure for such a diseased state of society. The then
Lord-Lieutenant thought it only proper to ask Sir
Edward, as the first law lord of the Crown, his
opinion, when his Lordship stated that in his opinion
the posse comitatus should be called out. The late
Chief Baron O'Grady, who perhaps understood Ire-
land as well as any man in it at the time, gave
him one of his comical looks, and said " They are
out already, but if your Lordship will devise some
means by which they may be sent home again we
will be obliged to you."
So it is, I am certain, with this law, knight or ba-
ronet=no matter which he is, I am bound to believe
as anxious for the welfare of Ireland as Sir Edward
Sugden, and there was no honester man ; but he
"lacks local knowledge." Supposing him to be as
honest as I give him credit for, could he not intro-
duce a clause into his Bill by which persons whose
poperties are not hopelessly encumbered could convert
the present incumbrances on their estates into the
securities contemplated by this Bill. This would let
a large amount of English capital into the market
which now lies idle, and enable proprietors who are
now suffering " all the ills which life is heir to" from
Chancery receivers, to become employers on a large
scale, absolutely creating thereby a large class of con-
sumers of excisable commodities. Surely it is as
plain as that one and one make two, that if it is for the
benefit of the country that strangers with insufficiency
of capital are assisted by the Government to possess
themselves of estates, it must be more to the advantage
of the community that those who have them already
should be permitted to retain them. A thousand asso-
ciations connected with the old proprietor of the soil
will have their value in a neighbourhood which would
never exist were a stranger to supply his place.
" Bear and forbear" has always been the Irish - pea-
sant's motto in his dealings with the old blood of the
land. How far it would be applicable in the event of
the substitution of a new proprietary, I, as an old
denizen of Ireland, well know. Tne materials of
which said proprietary are to be formed do not.
They little know the expectations which the Irish
peasant foreshadows to himself of the new master
who is to replace the old. They expect that his
hand never will be out of his pocket; that the most
trifling Irish service will be repaid with English gold ;
and,' after all, that the balance will be in the favour
of the giver, not of the receiver, as the ready wit, the
jest, the repartee, which is inseparable from the Irish
lord of the soil, will always be wanting where the
plain matter-of-fact—John Bull with his thousands
to back him—is concerned. No; trust me; let the
English millionaire get fair interest for his capital, all
I believe he wants, and he will find it his advantage
to leave "Ireland to the Irish"—they best under-
stand it, believe me. I have heretofore laboured suc-
cessfully in my vocation to get our properties rid of
the trammels of Chancery—may I now see my exer-
tions as fortunate where the new Act is concerned.
Your obedient servant,

H. J. BAYLEE.

The new screw-steamer Propontis, Capt. Brenan,
arrived in the Thames yesterday from Constantinople, with
a full cargo and about twenty passengers. The Propontis
left Liverpool for Gibraltar, Malta, and Constantinople, with
a cargo of 3,30 tons of goods, on the Ist March, reached
Gibraltar on the 7th, sailed thence the 9th, arrived at Malta
on the 13th, and sailed thence the 14th, and arrived at Con-
stantinople on the morning of the 19th, having made the
passage, deducting the stoppages at Gibraltar and Malta, in
sixteen days. After remaining a week at Constantinople the
Propontissailed for Smyrna, Malta, Gibraltar, and London,
and arrived here on the 19th, having made the return passage
in seventeen days.

INFLUENCE or ASSOCIATION.—I rem ember once
seeing an advertisement in the papers, with which I wasminch
struck ; and which I will take the liberty of reading :—‘, Lost,
in the Temple Coffee-house, and supposed to be taken away
by mistake, an oaken stick, which has supported its master
not only over the greatest part of Europe, but has been his
companion in his journeys over the inhospitable deserts of
Africa : whoever will restore it to the waiter will confer a
very serious obligation on the advertiser; or, if that be any
object, shall receive a recompense very much above the value
of the article restored." Now, here is a man, who buys a six-
penny stick, because it is useful ; and, totally forgetting the
trilling causes which first made his stick of any consequence,
speaks of it with warmth and affection; calls it his com-
panion; and would hardly have changed it, perhaps; for the
gold stick which is carried before the king. But the best and
the strongest example of this, and of the customary progress
of association, is in the passion of avarice. A child only
loves a guinea because it shines; and, as it is equally splen-
did, he loves a gilt button as well. In after-lite he begins
to love wealth, because it affords him thecomforts of existence ;
and then loves it so well, that he denies himself the common
comforts of life to increase it. The uniting idea is so totally
forgotten, that it is completely sacrificed to the ideas which
it unites. Two friends unite against the person to whose in-
troduction they are indebted for their knowledge of each
other; exclude him their society, and ruin him by their com-
bination.—Sydney Smith.