But, as Mr. Monk well knew, the subject of the Protestant
Endowments in Ireland was so difficult that it would require almost
more than human wisdom to adjust it. It was one of those matters
which almost seemed to require the interposition of some higher
power,--the coming of some apparently chance event,--to clear away
the evil; as a fire comes, and pestilential alleys are removed; as a
famine comes, and men are driven from want and ignorance and dirt to
seek new homes and new thoughts across the broad waters; as a war
comes, and slavery is banished from the face of the earth. But in
regard to tenant-right, to some arrangement by which a tenant in
Ireland might be at least encouraged to lay out what little capital
he might have in labour or money without being at once called upon to
pay rent for that outlay which was his own, as well as for the land
which was not his own,--Mr. Monk thought that it was possible that if
a man would look hard enough he might perhaps be able to see his way
as to that. He had spoken to two of his colleagues on the subject,
the two men in the Cabinet whom he believed to be the most thoroughly
honest in their ideas as public servants, the Duke and Mr. Gresham.
There was so much to be done;--and then so little was known upon the
subject! "I will endeavour to study it," said Mr.
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