29th April - 1st May, 1784

FMJ 29 April - May 1, 1784

Domestic Intelligence

Belfast, April 27.

There is every appearence of a very alarming emigration to America from this part of the kingdom in the present season. It is expected that not less than between six and eight hundred passengers will sail in the Friendship, and the Pacha, the two said vessels preparing to leave this port ; besides vast numbers that can possibly be taken. The number of ships now set up in the Northern ports, and the uncommon encouragement they receive, warrant the conjecture, that the landlords of Ireland, whose extravagant rapacityhas long conspired with other circumstances to weigh down this devoted country, must one day awake to a sense of this folly in banishing thousands of our useful manufactuyrers to climes foreign to, and now unconnected with us. Such is the weakness of our great landholdersthat the experience of ages which might teach them the impolicy of every manner of persecution only serves to confirm them in their old practice of exacting such racked rents from their tenants, as cannot be paid without leaving even the most industrious classes in the community in such a state of poverty and dependance as naturally prompts them to lookto prundence as naturally prompts them to look to any other country as preferable to that of their nativity.

Dublin, April 30

The building of the new custom house is carrying on with the greatest spirit, and when completed will undoubtedly be the first edificeof its kind in Europe. Among the variety of elegant decorations with which this sumptious pile is embellishing, is thirteencolassal heads emblematic of the principal rivers in the island, with singular descriptive ornamentation a state of sculpture as admirably executed as uncommon ;they are destined to form the keystones of as many arches or entrances.