There was a projected railroad which would
entirely knock up his canal, and even if crushed must be expensively
opposed. Coals were falling also, and the duties in town increasing.
There was sad confusion in the Irish estates. The missionaries, who were
patronised on the neighbouring lands of one of the City Companies, had
been exciting fatal confusion. Chapels were burnt, crops destroyed,
stock butchered, and rents all in arrear. Mr. Dacre had contrived with
great prudence to repress the efforts of the new reformation, and had
succeeded in preventing any great mischief. His plans for the pursual
of his ideas and feelings upon this subject had been communicated to his
late ward in an urgent and important paper, which his Grace had never
seen, but one day, unread, pushed into a certain black cabinet, which
perhaps the reader may remember. His Grace's miscellaneous debts
had also been called in, and amounted to a greater sum than they had
anticipated, which debts always do. One hundred and forty thousand
pounds had crumbled away in the most imperceptible manner. A great slice
of this was the portion of the jeweller.
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