CHAPTER IV..

PRIDE, AND ITS CONCOMITANT FOLLY, OCCASION A CIVIL WAR; AND BIGOTRY AND AMBITION A

TERRIBLE CONFLAGRATION.-DECLARED FOES BETTER THAN PRIVATE ENEMIES.-WARS ENDED BY TREATIES OF PEACE, WHICH ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF WARS. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYING

THE GAME OF 6

IN I COME, AND OUT YOU GO,' BY A SET OF EXPERIENCED GAMESTERS.-PUNICA FIDES, OR GREAT MEN'S PROMISES.

BOREAS, at first, appeared to be determined to carry Greenfield's measures with respect to the Thirteen Acres into effect; but the tenants opposed and ill-treated the agents sent to levy the fines. Terrified by their firm resolution, he displayed his weakness and pride by giving up the fines, at the very same time that he insisted upon his right to levy them. By these ridicu-lous measures, he thought at once to conciliate and intimidate the obstreperous tenants-that

is, to make black and white from the same substance; but he knew nothing of their tempers, and fell into

66 an error

Much incident to human politics,

Who strive to know others more than themselves."

The tenants of Thirteen Acres conceived that the rod was only put in pickle for them, and they resolved to bring it to the issue of trying whether Boreas could give them a flogging or not.-Blows ensued between them and those of the Lord's tenants, who were sent to reduce them to submission; and they were at first beaten at every point; but the leader of the Freelanders managed matters so badly, that he never improved a single advantage. It was indeed alleged against him, that it was for his own interest to continue the dispute; and one of his honest subalterns openly declared, that if the chief had been paid by the job, instead of by the day, the struggle would have been soon and successfully terminated. As it was, when it had been protracted to the end of four years, with a ruinous expense to the Freelanders,

their cause was then much worse than at the beginning. The tenants of Thirteen Acres declared themselves independent of Freeland, and Farmer Lewis, being detected in privately assisting them, threw off the mask, and openly espoused their cause, thinking to have fine sport by fishing in the troubled waters.

The affairs of Freeland Manor were now in the greatest confusion, as, besides these external squabbles, the leading persons within the manor were very tumultuous. A party had been formed against the Steward, by lawyer Dunn, Charles Brush, and Edmund Quirke, who ventured so far as to pry into the household concerns of the Lord. Quirke was to attempt to retrench all superfluities at his table, whilst Brush exposed the Steward's weak measures, and Dunn strove to restore the tenants to their full privileges which he alleged to have been infringed.

Quirke attacked the superfluity of mince-pies at the Mansion-house during Christmas, asserting that plum pudding was sufficient; but the delegates would not refuse their Lord so trifling an addition to his happiness. Dunn then took

up the cudgels, and declared that the Lord's power had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. The delegates coincided with him, and Boreas would have been thrown out of his saddle, if the old proverb had not been verified — ' It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.'

When once the rabble are inflamed, they are like firebrands in the hands of a fool. Some Roman Catholics had taken up their residence within the manor, and, as they were very quiet, inoffensive, industrious people, the Lord did not insist upon the severe penalties, which were in force against them. Some Scotch and English Protestant bigots, sounded the alarm of the returning reign of popery, and being headed by one George Goademon, an ambitious madman and fool, they demanded the oppression of the Catholics. As this demand was not instantaneously complied with, they broke out into open violence against the officers of the Lord's household; not only the houses and chapels of the Catholics were set on fire, but as many lawless depredators joined the bigots, those of the Pro

testants were ransacked for plunder. Transgressors no longer apprehended the durance vile of the houses of correction, nor of the stocks; vagrant cattle no longer starved within the narrow precincts of the pound. Fire consumed them all; and terror pervaded every breast. Men trembled,-women fainted,—children cried,bulls growled,-cows moaned,calves and sheep bleated,-horses pawed, and snorted, and hogs grunted. All the manor of Freeland appeared to await the last conflagration, except the Steward and his party, who, it has been said, laughed in their sleeves, and thought the joke as good a one as Nero imagined the burning of Rome to be.-After these disorders had lasted several days, the rabble were quelled by force; and it was supposed that the Steward might have stopped the tumult in the beginning, if he had not neglected to take the proper means. The motive assigned was, that he wished the minds of the tenantry to be diverted from his own misconduct by a consideration of the general danger. It was not to be doubted, that he was a 'trem