the practice in public and private business, and it is now more than ever so, on account of the number of country banks, which corrupt the whole country, by soliciting the custody of ever so small a sum, if it be but for a day, and by having recourse to this and a variety of other methods to circulate their notes, which must end in some great public calamity. To obviate this so far as regards your particular interest, it will be prudent on no account to receive or pay the notes of any country bank, but both to receive and pay in current coin.
"Rents are payable in England commonly at Michaelmas and Lady-day, and in Ireland commonly on the 1st of May and 1st of November.
"It is customary and reasonable to leave one half year in the tenant's hands, but any further indulgence will always be found as pernicious to the tenant as to the landlord, and in fact more so. If land is Jet too high, lower it. In case of any particular calamity, it may deserve distinct consideration. Wherever I have forborne longer, which was too often, till I came to see the consequences, it has always ended in the ruin of the tenant. But as there may be particular fairs and local circumstances, it may be right to give to the month of April and October to pay the English rents, and to June or July, to pay the Irish May rents, and so on in proportion, requiring the agents to state the circumstances, and to use their utmost endeavour to bring the tenants upon each estate to some precise day of audit within the above limits, which if the agent has no by-view to answer, must suit his convenience far better than receiving by dribblets.
"English agents must return their accounts by the 10th of May and 10th of November; and Irish agents by the 10th of August and 10th of February. But this is a point of so much importance, that if the English accounts are not received by the 1st of June and the 1st of December, and the Irish by the 1st of September and 1st of March, the agent who fails must ipso facto be dismissed, it being the hinge upon which the whole of
