'Irish,' says Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior rank of _Irish Papists_, and even that little diminishes every day, by the great desire the poor natives have that their children should be taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send them.' The author exults in the progress of Protestantism.

There were but two Catholic gentlemen in the county who had estates, and their income was very moderate.

When the priests were registered in 1704 there were but thirty in the county.

In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors showed-- Protestant families in the county Down 14,000 Catholic families 5,210 Total Protestants, reckoning five a family 70,300 Total Catholics 26,050 ______ Protestant majority 44,250 Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th century type, with boundless faith in the moral influence of the Charter schools, would be greatly distressed if he could have lived in these degenerate days, and seen the last religious census, which gives the following figures for the county of Down:-- Protestants of all denominations 202,026 Catholics 97,240 _______ Total population 299,266 The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was 96,350.
These figures show that the population was more than trebled in 130 years, and that the Catholics have increased nearly fourfold.
The history of the Hertfort estate illustrates every phase of the tenant-right question.

It contains 66,000 acres, and comprises the barony of Upper Massereene, part of the barony of Upper Belfast, in the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies of Castlereagh and Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down; consisting altogether of no less than 140 townlands.