In April 1773, the Londonderry Journal expressed alarm at the high rate of emigration, estimating that some 17,500 persons had gone to America from Ulster ports since 1771: ''The great part of these emigrants paid their passage, which at 3 pounds 10 shillings each amounted to 60,725 pounds, most of them people employed in the linen manufacture, or farmers, and some of property which they turned into money and carried with them.... This removal is sensibly felt in this country.
''This prevalent humour of industrious Protestants withdrawing from this once flourishing corner of the kingdom, seems to be increasing: and it is thought the number will be considerably larger this year than ever.
The north of Ireland has been occasionally used to emigration, for which the American settlements have been much beholden: - But till now, it was chiefly the very meanest of people who went off, mostly in the station of indentured servants and such as had become obnoxious to their mother country. In short, it is computed from many concurrent circumstances, that the north of Ireland has in the last five or six years been drained of one fourth of its trading class, and the like proportion of the manfacturing people. Where the evil will end, remains only in the womb of time to discover.
The S.I. in the Carolinas
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