We know that the government of Ireland (the same
as the British) is not in its constitution wholly aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither
is it in its spirit.
as the British) is not in its constitution wholly aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither
is it in its spirit.
Edmund Burke
AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS.
235
Church. It is a great deal to suppose that even the
present Castle would nominate bishops for the Roman Church of Ireland with a religious regard for its
welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they dare not
do it.
But suppose them to be as well inclined as I know
that I am to do the Catholics all kind of justice, I
declare I would not, if it were in my power, take
that patronage on myself. I know I ought not to do
it. . I belong to another community, and it would be
intolerable usurpation for me to affect such authority, where I conferred no benefit, or even if I did confer (as in some degree the seraglio does) temporal advantages. But allowing that the present Castle finds itself fit to administer the government of a church
which they solemnly forswear, and forswear with very
hard words and many evil epithets, and that as often
as they qualify themselves for the power which is to
give this very patronage, or to give anything else
that they desire, - yet they cannot insure themselves
that a man like the late Lord Chesterfield will not
succeed to them. This man, while he was duping
the credulity of Papists with fine words in private,
and commending their good behavior during a rebellion in Great Britain, (as it well deserved to be commended and rewarded,) was capable of urging penal
laws against them in a speech from the throne, and
of stimulating with provocatives the wearied and halfexhausted bigotry of the then Parliament of Ireland.
They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do;
for they had already almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigor of their country:
but, after much struggle, they produced a child of
their old age, the shocking and unnatural act about
? ? ? ? 236 ON THE PENAL LAWS
marriages, which tended to finish the scheme for
making the people not only two distinct parties forever, but keeping them as two distinct species in the
same land. Mr. Gardiner's humanity was shocked
at it, as one of the worst parts of that truly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference,
where almost all the parts were outrages on the
rights of humanity and the laws of Nature.
Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot,
should be in power again in that country, do you
believe that he would faithfully and religiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a church
which, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold
need of ministers who will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who will exercise a really
paternal authority amongst them? But if the superior power was always in a disposition to dispense
conscientiously, and like an upright trustee and
guardian of these rights which he holds for those
with whom he is at variance, has he the capacity
and means of doing it? How can the Lord-Lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, so as to
discern which of the Popish priests is fit to be made
a bishop? It cannot be: the idea is ridiculous. He
will hand them over to lords-lieutenant of counties,
justices of the peace, and other persons, who, for the
purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserable people, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst the clergy to set over the rest. Whoever is complained against by his brother
will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by his superior, will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his opinions and
loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and
? ? ? ? AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS. 237
will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he
was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and
obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon
their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen of
the country, will be the objects of preferment. And
then I run no risk in foretelling that whatever order,
quiet, and morality you have in the country will be
lost. A Popish clergy who are not restrained by the
most austere subordination will become a nuisance,
a real public grievance of the heaviest kind, in any
country that entertains them; and instead of the
great benefit which Ireland does and has long derived from them, if they are educated without any idea of discipline and obedience, and then put under
bishops who do not owe their station to their good
opinion, and whom they cannot respect, that nation
will see disorders, of which, bad as things are, it has
yet no idea. I do not say this, as thinking the leading men in Ireland would exercise this trust worse than others. Not at all. No man, no. set of men
living are fit to administer the affairs or regulate
the interior economy of a church to which they are
enemies.
As to government, if I might recommend a prudent caution to them, it would be, to innovate as
little as possible, upon speculation, in establishments
from which, as they stand, they experience no material inconvenience to the repose of the country, -- quieta non movere.
I could say a great deal more; but I am tired, and
am afraid your Lordship is tired too. I have not sat
to this letter a single quarter of an hour without
interruption. It has grown long, and probably contains many repetitions, from my total want of leisure
? ? ? ? 238 ON THE PENAL LAWS
to digest and consolidate my thoughts; and as to my
expressions, I could wish to be able perhaps to measure them more exactly. But my intentions are fair,
and I certainly mean to offend nobody.
Thinking over this matter more maturely, I see no
reason for altering my opinion in any part. The act,
as far as it goes, is good undoubtedly. It amounts, I
think, very nearly to a toleration, with respect to religious ceremonies; but it puts a new bolt on civil
rights, and rivets it to the old one in such a manner, that neither, I fear, will be easily loosened.
What I could have wished would be, to see the civil
advantages take the lead; the other, of a religious
toleration, I conceive, would follow, (in a manner,)
of course. From what I have observed, it is pride,
arrogance, and a spirit of domination, and not a bigoted spirit of religion, that has caused and kept up
those oppressive statutes. I am sure I have known
those who have oppressed Papists in their civil rights
exceedingly indulgent to them in their religious ceremonies, and who really wished them to continue
Catholics, in order to furnish pretences for oppression. These persons never saw a man (by converting) escape out of their power, but with grudging and regret. I have known men to whom I am not
uncharitable in saying (though they are dead) that
they would have become Papists in order to oppress
Protestants, if, being Protestants, it was not in their
power to oppress Papists. It is injustice, and not a
mistaken conscience, that has been the principle of
persecution, - at least, as far as it has fallen under
my observation. - However, as I began, so I end. I
? ? ? ? AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS. 239
do not know the map of the country. Mr. Gardiner,
who conducts this great and difficult work, and those
who support him, are better judges of the business
than I can pretend to be, who have not set my foot
in Ireland these sixteen years. I have been given
to understand that I am not considered as a friend to
that country; and I know that pains have been taken
to lessen the credit that I might have had there.
I am so convinced of the weakness of interfering
in any business, without the opinion of the people in
whose business I interfere, that I do not know how to
acquit myself of what I have now done.
I have the honor to be, with high regard and esteem, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient
And humble servant, &c.
EDMUND BURKE.
? ? ? ? LETTER
TO
SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART. , M. P. ,
ON THE SUBJECT OF
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND,
AND
THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, CONSISTENTLY WITH
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION, AS ESTABLISHED AT THE REVOLUTION.
I792.
VOL. IV. 16
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MY DEAR SIR, --Your remembrance of me, with
sentiments of so much kindness, has given me
the most sincere satisfaction. It perfectly agrees with
the friendly and hospitable reception which my son
and I received from you some time since, when, after
an absence of twenty-two years, I had the happiness
of embracing you, among my few surviving friends.
I really imagined that I should'not again interest
myself in any public business. I had, to the best of
my moderate faculties, paid my club to the society
which I was born in some way or other to serve; and
I thought I had a right to put on my night-gown and
slippers, and wish a cheerful evening to the good company I must leave behind. But if our resolutions
of vigor and exertion are so often broken or procrastinated in the execution, I think we may be excused, if we are not very punctual in fulfilling our engagements
to indolence and inactivity. I have, indeed, no power
of action, and am almost a cripple even with regard
to thinking; but you descend with force into the stagnant pool, and you cause such a fermentation as to cure at least one impotent creature of his lameness,
though it cannot enable him either to run or to
wrestle.
You see by the paper * I take that I am likely to
be long, with malice prepense. You have brought
* The letter is written on folio sheets.
? ? ? ? 244 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
under my view a subject always difficult, at present
critical. It has filled my thoughts, which I wish to
lay open to you with the clearness and simplicity
which your friendship demands from me. I thank
you for the communication of your ideas. I should
be still more pleased, if they had been more your
own. What you hint I believe to be the case: that,
if you had not deferred to the judgment of others,
our opinions would not differ more materially at
this day than they did when we used to confer on
the same subject so many years ago. If I still persevere in my old opinions, it is no small comfort to
me that it is not with regard to doctrines properly
yours that I discover my indocility.
The case upon which your letter of the 10th of
December turns is hardly before me with precision
enough to enable me to form any very certain judgment upon it. It seems to be some plan of further indulgence proposed for the Catholics of Ireland.
You observe, that your " general principles are not
changed, but that times and circumstances are altered. "
I perfectly agree with you, that times and circumstances, considered with reference to the public, ought
very much to govern our conduct, - though I am far
from slighting, when applied with discretion to those
circumstances, general principles and maxims of policy. I cannot help observing, however, that you have said rather less upon the inapplicability of your own
old principles to the circumstances that are likely to
influence your conduct against these principles than
of the general maxims of state, which I can very readily believe not to have great weight with you personally. In my present state of imperfect information, you
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 245
will pardon the errors into which I may easily fall.
The principles you lay down are, " that the Roman
Catholics should enjoy everything under the state,
but should not be the state itself. " And you add,
" that, when you exclude them from being a part of
the state, you rather conform to the spirit of the age
than to any abstract doctrine "; but you consider the
Constitution as already established, - that our state
is Protestant. " It was declared so at the Revolution.
It was so provided in the acts for settling the succession of the crown:- the king's coronation oath
was enjoined in order to keep it so. The king, as
first magistrate of the state, is obliged to take the
oath of abjuration,* and to subscribe the Declaration; and by laws subsequent, every other magistrate and member of the state, legislative and executive, are bound under the same obligation. "
As to the plan to which these maxims are applied,
I cannot speak, as I told you, positively about it:
because neither from your letter, nor from any information I have been able to collect, do I find anything settled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or on that of any persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament. But if
I have leave to conjecture, something is in agitation
towards admitting them, under certain qualifications,
to have some share in the election of members of Parliament. This I understand is the scheme of those
who are entitled to come within your description
of persons of consideration, property, and character,
- and firmly attached to the king and Constitution,
as by "law established, with a grateful sense of your
* A small error of fact as to the abjuration oath, but of no importance in the argument.
? ? ? ? 246 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
former concessions, and a patient reliance on the benignity of Parliament for the further mitigation of
the laws that still affect them. " -- As to the low,
thoughtless, wild, and profligate, who have joined
themselves with those of other professions, but of the
same character, you are not to imagine that for a
moment I can suppose them to be met with anything
else than the manly and enlightened energy of a firm
government, supported by the united efforts of all
virtuous men, if ever their proceedings should become so considerable as to demand its notice. I really think that such associations should be crushed in their very commencement.
Setting, therefore, this case out of the question,
it becomes an object of very serious consideration,
whether, because wicked men of various descriptions
are engaged in seditious courses, the rational, sober,
and valuable part of one description should not be
indulged in their sober and rational expectations.
You, who have looked deeply into the spirit of the
Popery laws, must be perfectly sensible that a great
part of the present mischief which we abhor in common (if it at all exists) has arisen from them. Their
declared object was, to reduce the Catholics of Ireland
to a miserable populace, without property, without
estimation, without education. The professed object
was, to deprive the few men, who, in spite of those
laws, might hold or obtain any property amongst
them, of all sort of influence or authority over the
rest. They divided the nation into two distinct bodies, without common interest, sympathy, or connection. One of these bodies was to possess all the franchises, all the property, all the education: the
other was to be composed of drawers of water and
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 247
cutters of turf for them. Are we to be astonished,
when, by the efforts of so much violence in conquest,
and so much policy in regulation, continued without
intermission for near an hundred years, we had reduced them to a mob, that, whenever they came to
act at all, many of them would act exactly like a
mob, without temper, measure, or foresight? Surely
it might be just now a matter of temperate discussion, whether you ought not to apply a remedy to
the real cause of the evil. If the disorder you speak
of be real and considerable, you ought to raise an
aristocratic interest, that is, aln interest of property
and education, amongst them, -and to strengthen,
by every prudent means, the authority and influence
of men of that description. It will deserve your best
thoughts, to examine whether this can be done without giving such persons the means of demonstrating
to the rest that something more is to be got by their
temperate conduct than can be expected from the
wild and senseless projects of those who do not belong to their body, who have no interest in their wellbeing, and only wish to make them the dupes of their turbulent ambition.
If the absurd persons you mention find no way of
providing for liberty, but by overturning this happy
Constitution, and introducing a frantic democracy,
let us take care how we prevent better people from
any rational expectations of partaking in the benefits
of that Constitution as it stands. The maxims you
establish cut the matter short. They have no sort of
connection with the good or the ill behavior of the
persons who seek relief, or with the proper or improper means by which they seek it. They form a
perpetual bar to all pleas and to all expectations.
? ? ? ? 248 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
You begin by asserting, that "' the Catholics ought
to enjoy all things under the state, but that they
ought not to be the state": a position which, I believe, in the latter part of it, and in the latitude there expressed, no man of common sense has ever thought
proper to dispute; because the contrary implies that
the state ought to be in them exclusively. But before
you have finished the line, you express yourself as if
the other member of your proposition, namely, that
" they ought not to be a part of the state," were necessarily included in the first, - whereas I conceive it
to be as different as a part is from the whole, that is,
just as different as possible. I know, indeed, that it
is common with those who talk very differently from
you, that is, with heat and animosity, to confound
those things, and to argue the admission of the Catholics into any, however minute and subordinate, parts of the state, as a surrender into their hands of the
whole government of the kingdom. To them I have
nothing at all to say.
Wishing to proceed with a deliberative spirit and
temper in so very serious a question, I shall attempt
to analyze, as well as I can, the principles you lay
down, in order to fit them for the grasp of an understanding so little comprehensive as mine. -" State,"
-" Protestant," -- " Revolution. " These are terms
which, if not well explained, may lead us into many
errors. In the word State I conceive there is much
ambiguity. The state is sometimes used to signify
the whole commonwealth, comprehending all its orders,
with the several privileges belonging to each. Sometimes it signifies only the higher and ruling part of the commonwealth, which we commonly call the Government. In the first sense, to be under the state,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 249
but not the state itself, nor any part of it, that is, to
be nothing at all in the commonwealth, is a situation
perfectly intelligible, - but to those who fill that situation, not very pleasant, when it is understood. It
is a state of civil servitude, by the very force of the
definition. Servorum non est respublica is a very old
and a very true maxim. This servitude, which makes
men subject to a state without being citizens, may be
more or less tolerable from many circumstances; but
these circumstances, more or less favorable, do not alter the nature of the thing. The mildness by which absolute masters exercise their dominion leaves them
masters still. We may talk a little presently of the.
manner in which the majority of the people of Ire --
land (the Catholics) are affected by this situation,.
which at present undoubtedly is theirs, and which
you are of opinion ought so to continue forever.
In the other sense of the word State, by which is
understood the Supreme Government only, I must observe this upon the question: that to exclude whole classes of ipen entirely from this part of government
cannot be considered as absolute slavery. It only implies a lower and degraded state of citizenship: such is (with more or less strictness) the condition of all
countries in which an hereditary nobility possess the
exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government,- provided that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their
cabals and factions are guarded against with a severe
vigilance, and that the people (who have no share in
granting their own money) are subjected to but light
impositions, and are otherwise treated with attention,
and with indulgence to their humors and prejudices.
The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly
? ? ? ? 250 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
confines all the great functions and offices, such as
are truly state functions and state offices, to those
who by hereditary right or admission are noble Venetialls. But there are many offices, and some of
them not mean nor unprofitable, (that of Chancellor
is onle,) which are reserved for the cittadini. Of
these all citizens of Venice are capable. The inhabitants of the terra firma, who are mere subjects of conquest, that is, as you express it, under the state,
but " not a part of it," are not, however, subjects in
so very rigorous a sense as not to be capable of numberless subordinate employments. It is, indeed, one of the advantages attending the narrow bottom of
their aristocracy, (narrow as compared with their
acquired dominions, otherwise broad enough,) that
an exclusion from such employments cannot possibly
be made amongst their subjects. There are, besides,
advantages in states so constituted, by which those
who are considered as of an inferior race are indemnified for their exclusion from the government, and from nobler employments. In all these, countries,
either by express law, or by usage more operative,
the noble castes are almost universally, in their turn,
excluded from commerce, manufacture, farming of
land, and in general from all lucrative civil professions. The nobles have the monopoly of honor;
the plebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus some sort of a balance is
formed among conditions; a sort of compensation
is furnished to those who, in a limited sense, are excluded from the government of the state.
Between the extreme of a total exclusion, to which
your maxim goes, and an universal unmodified capacity, to which the fanatics pretend, there are many
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 251
different degrees and stages, and a great variety of
temperaments, upon which prudence may give full
scope to its exertions. For you know that the decisions of prudence (contrary to the system of the insane reasoners) differ from those of judicature; and that almost all the former are determined on the
more or the less, the earlier or the later, and on a
balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good and
evil.
In all considerations which turn upon the question
of vesting or continuing the state solely and exclusively in some one description of citizens, prudent
legislators will consider how far the general form and
principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be cast
into an oligarchical shape, or to remain always in it.
We know that the government of Ireland (the same
as the British) is not in its constitution wholly aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither
is it in its spirit. If it had been inveterately aristocratical, exclusions might be more patiently submitted to. The lot of one plebeian would be the lot
of all; and an habitual reverence and admiration of
certain families might make the people content to
see government wholly in hands to whom it seemed
naturally to belong. But our Constitution has a
plebeian member, which forms an essential integrant
part of it. A plebeian oligarchy is a monster; and
no people, not absolutely domestic or predial slaves,
will long endure it. The Protestants of Ireland are
not alone sufficiently the people to form a democracy; and they are too numerous to answer the ends
and purposes of an aristocracy. Admiration, that
first source of obedience, can be only the claim or
the imposture of the few. I hold it to be absolutely
? ? ? ? 252 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
impossible for two millions of plebeians, composing
certainly a very clear and decided majority in that
class, to become so far in love with six or seven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outward
appearance plebeians like themselves, and many of
them tradesmen, servants, and otherwise inferior to
some of them) as to see with satisfaction, or even
with patience, an exclusive power vested in them,
by which constitutionally they become the absolute
masters, and, by the manners derived from their
circumstances, must be capable of exercising upon
them, daily and hourly, an insulting and vexatious
superiority. Neither are the majority of the Irish
indemnified (as in some aristocracies) for this state
of humiliating vassalage (often inverting the nature
of things and relations) by having the lower walks
of industry wholly abandoned to them. They are
rivalled, to say the least of the matter, in every laborious and lucrative course of life; while every franchise, every honor, every trust, every place, down to the very lowest and least confidential, (besides whole
professions,) is reserved for the master caste.
Our Constitution is not made for great, general,
and proscriptive exclusions; sooner or later it will
destroy them, or they will destroy the Constitution.
In our Constitution there has always been a difference between a franchise and an office, and between
the capacity for the one and for the other. Franchises were supposed to belong to the subject, as a
subject, and not as a member of the governing part of
the state. The policy of government has considered
them as things very different; for, whilst Parliament
excluded by the test acts (and for a while these test
acts were not a dead letter, as now they are in Eng
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 253
land) Protestant Dissenters from all civil and military employments, they never touched their right of
voting for members of Parliament or sitting in either
House: a point I state, not as approving or condemning, with regard to them, the measure of exclusion
from employments, but to prove that the distinction
has been admitted in legislature, as, in truth, it is
founded in reason.
I will not here examine whether the principles of
the British [the Irish] Constitution be wise or not.
I must assume that they are, and that those who
partake the franchises which make it partake of a
benefit. They who are excluded from votes (under proper qualifications inherent in the Constitution that gives them) are excluded, not from the state, but from the British Constitution. They cannot by any possibility, whilst they hear its praises
continually rung in their ears, and are present at
the declaration which is so generally and so bravely made by those who possess the privilege, that
the best blood in their veins ought to be shed to
preserve their share in it, --they, the disfranchised
part, cannot, I say, think themselves in an happy
state, to be utterly excluded from all its direct
and all its consequential advantages. The popular
part of the Constitution must be to them by far the
most odious part of it. To them it is not an actual,
and, if possible, still less a virtual representation. It
is, indeed, the direct contrary. It is power unlimited
placed in the hands of an adverse description because
it is an adverse description. And if they who compose the privileged body have not an interest, they
must but too frequently have motives of pride, passion, petulance, peevish jealousy, or tyrannic suspi
? ? ? ? 254 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
cion, to urge them to treat the excluded people with
contempt and rigor.
This is not a mere theory; though, whilst men are
men, it is a theory that cannot be false. I do not
desire to revive all the particulars in my memory; I
wish them to sleep forever; but it is impossible I
should wholly forget what happened in some parts
of Ireland, with very few and short intermissions,
from the year 1761 to the year 1766, both inclusive. In a country of miserable police, passing from
the extremes of laxity to the extremes of rigor, among
a neglected and therefore disorderly populace, if any
disturbance or sedition, from any grievance real or
imaginary, happened to arise, it was presently perverted from its true nature, often criminal enough
in itself to draw upon it a severe, appropriate pun
ishment: it was metamorphosed into a conspiracy
against the state, and prosecuted as such. Amongst
the Catholics, as being by far the most numerous and
the most wretched, all sorts of offenders against the
laws must commonly be found. The punishment of
low people for the offences usual among low people
would warrant no inference against any descriptions
of religion or of politics. Men of consideration from
their age, their profession, or their character, men
of proprietary landed estates, substantial renters, opulent merchants, physicians, and titular bishops, could not easily be suspected of riot in open day, or of nocturnal assemblies for the purpose of pulling down hedges, making breaches in park-walls, firing barns,
maiming cattle, and outrages of a similar nature,
which characterize the disorders of an oppressed or
a licentious populace. But when the evidence given
on the trial for such misdemeanors qualified them as
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 255
overt acts of high treason, and when witnesses were
found (such witnesses as they were) to depose to the
taking of oaths of allegiance by the rioters to the king
of France, to their being paid by his money, and embodied and exercised under his officers, to overturn
the state for the purposes of that potentate, - in that
case, the rioters might (if the witness was believed)
be supposed only the troops, and persons more reputable the leaders and commanders, in such a rebellion.
All classes in the obnoxious description, who could
not be suspected of the lower crime of riot, might be
involved in the odium, in the suspicion, and sometimes in the punishment, of a higher and far more
criminal species of offence. These proceedings did
not arise from any one of the Popery laws since
repealed, but from this circumstance, that, when it
answered the purposes of an election party or a
malevolent person of influence to forge such plots,
the people had no protection. The people of that
description have no hold on the gentlemen who
aspire to be popular representatives. The candidates neither love nor respect nor fear them, individually or collectively. I do not think this evil (an evil amongst a thousand others) at this day entirely
over; for I conceive I have lately seen some indication of a disposition perfectly similar to the old one, --
that is, a disposition to carry the imputation of crimes
from persons to descriptions, and wholly to alter the
character and quality of the offences themselves.
This universal exclusion seems to me a serious evil,
- because many collateral oppressions, besides what
I have just now stated, have arisen from it. In things
of this nature it would not be either easy or proper
to quote chapter and verse; but I have great reason
? ? ? ? 256 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRIS1IE.
to believe, particularly since the Octennial Act, that
several have refused at all to let their lands to Roman Catholics, because it would so far disable them
from promoting such interests in counties as they
were inclined to favor. They who consider also the
state of all sorts of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and particularly publicans in towns, must soon discern the
disadvantages under which those labor who have no
votes. It cannot be otherwise, whilst the spirit of
elections and the tendencies of human nature continue as they are. If property be artificially separated from franchise, the franchise must in some way or other, and in some proportion, naturally attract
property to it. Many are the collateral disadvantages, amongst a privileged people, which must attend
on those who have no privileges.
Among the rich, each individual, with or without a
fianchise, is of importance; the poor and the middling
are no otherwise so than as they obtain some collective capacity, and can be aggregated to some corps.
If legal ways are not found, illegal will be resorted
to; and seditious clubs and confederacies, such as
no man living holds in greater horror than I do, will
grow and flourish, in spite, I am afraid, of anything
which can be done to prevent the evil. Lawful enjoyment is the surest method to prevent unlawful
gratification. Where there is property, there will be
less theft; where there is marriage, there will always
be less fornication.
I have said enough of the question of state, as it
affects the people merely as such. But it is complicated with a political question relative to religion, to
which it is very necessary I should say something,
because the term Protestant, which you apply, is too
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 257
general for the conclusions which one of your accurate understanding would wish to draw from it, and
because a great deal of argument will depend on the
use that is made of that term.
It is not a fundamental part of the settlement at
the Revolution that the state should be Protestant
without any qualification of the term. With a qualification it is unquestionably true; not in all its latitude. With the qualification, it was true before the Revolution. Our predecessors in legislation were not
so irrational (not to say impious) as to form an operose ecclesiastical establishment, and even to render
the state itself in some degree subservient to it, when
their religion (if such it might be called) was noth ?
ing but a mere negation of some other, - without any
positive idea, either of doctrine, discipline, worship,
or morals, in the scheme which they professed themselves, and which they imposed upon others, even
under penalties and incapacities. No! No! This
never could have been done, even by reasonable atheists. They who think religion of no importance to
the state have abandoned it to the conscience or
caprice of the individual; they make no provision
for it whatsoever, but leave every club to make, or
nlot, a voluntary contribution towards its support, according to their fancies. This would be consistent.
The other always appeared to me to be a monster of
contradiction and absurdity. It was for that reason,
that, some years ago, I strenuously opposed the clergy who petitioned, to the number of about three
hundred, to be freed from' the subscription to the
Thirty-Nine Articles, without proposing to substitute
any other in their place. There never has been a.
religion of the state (the few years of the Parliament:
VOL. IV. 17
? ? ? ? 258 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
only excepted) but that of the Episcopal Church of
England: the Episcopal Church of England, before
the Reformation, connected. with the see of Rome;
since then, disconnected, and protesting against some
of her doctrines, and against the whole of her authority, as binding in our national church: nor did the
funldamental laws of this kingdom (in Ireland it has
been the same) ever know, at any period, any other
church as an object of establishment, - or, in that light,
any other Protestant religion. Nay, our Protestant
toleration itself, at the Revolution, and until within
a few years, required a signature of thirty-six, and
a part of the thirty-seventh, out of the Thirty-Nine
Articles. So little idea had they at the Revolution
of establishing Protestantism indefinitely, that they did
not indefinitely tolerate it under that name. I do not
mean to praise that strictness, where nothing more
than merely religious toleration is concerned. Toleration, being a part of moral and political prudence,
ought to be tender and large. A tolerant government ought not to be too scrupulous in its investigations, but may bear without blame, not only very ill-grounded doctrines, but even many things that
are positively vices, where they. are adulta et prcevalida. The good of the commonwealth is the rule
which rides over the rest; and to this every other
must completely submit.
The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. She has by the articles of union secured to herself the perpetual establishment of the Confession
of Faith, and the Presbyterian Church government. .
In England, even during the troubled interregnum,
it was not thought fit to establish a negative religion;
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 259
but the Parliament settled the Presbyterian as the
Church discipline, the _Directory as the rule of public
worship, and the Westminster Catechism as the institute of faith. This is to show that at no time was
the Protestant religion, undefined, established here or
anywhere else, as I believe. I am sure, that, when
the three religions were established in Germlany, they
were expressly characterized and declared to be the
Evangelic, the Reformed, and the Catholic; each of
which has its confession of faith and its settled discipline: so that you always may know the best and the worst of them, to enable you to make the most of
what is good, and to correct or to qualify or to guard
against whatever may seem evil or dangerous.
As to the coronation oath, to which you allude, as
opposite to admitting a Roman Catholic to the use
of any franchise whatsoever, I cannot think that the
king would be perjured, if he gave his assent to any
regulation which Parliament might think fit to make
with regard to that affair. The king is bound by
law, as clearly specified in several acts of Parliament,
to be in communion with the Church of England. It
is a part of the tenure by which he holds his crown;
and though no provision was made till the Revolution, which could be called positive and valid in law,
to ascertain this great principle, I have always considered it as in fact fundamental, that the king of England should be of the Christian religion, according to the national legal church for the time being.
I conceive it was so before the Reformation. Since
the Reformation it became doubly necessary; because
the king is the head of that church, in some sort an
ecclesiastical person, - and it would be incongruous
and absurd to have the head of the Church of one
? ? ? ? 260 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRIShE.
faith, and the members of another. The king may
inherit the crown as a Protestant; but he cannot hold
it, according to law, without being a Protestant of the
Church of -England.
Before we take it for granted that the king is
bound by his coronation oath not to admit any of
his Catholic subjects to the rights and liberties which
ought to belong to them as Englishmen, (not as religionists,) or to settle the conditions or proportions
of such admission by an act of Parliament, I wish
you to place before your eyes that oath itself, as it
is settled in the act of William and Mary.
"Will you to the utmost of your power maintain
123
the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel,
4
and the Protestant Reformed Religion established by
5
law? And will you preserve unto the bishops and
clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed
to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by
law do or shall appertain unto them, or any of them?
-All this I promise to do. "
Here are the coronation engagements of the king.
In them I do not find one word to preclude his Majesty from consenting to any arrangement which Parliament may make with regard to the civil privileges of any part of his subjects.
It may not be amiss, on account of the light which
it will throw on this discussion, to look a little more
narrowly into the matter of that oath, --in order to
discover how far it has hitherto operated, or how far
in future it ought to operate, as a bar to any proceedings of the crown and Parliament in favor of
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 261
those against whom it may be supposed that the king
has engaged to support the Protestant Church of England in the two kingdoms in which it is established
by law. First, the king swears he will maintain to
the utmost of his power " the laws of God. " I suppose it means the natural moral laws. -- Secondly,
he swears to maintain " the true profession of the
Gospel. " By which I suppose is understood affir2atively the Christian religion. --Thirdly, that he
will maintain "'the Protestant reformed religion. "
This leaves me no power of supposition or conjecture; for that Protestant reformed religion is defilted and described by the subsequent words, "established by law"; and in this instance, to define it beyond all possibility of doubt, he swears to maintain the " bishops and clergy, and the churches committed to their charge," in their rights present and
future.
The oath as effectually prevents the king from doing anything to the prejudice of the Church, in favor,
of sectaries, Jews, Mahometans, or plain avowed infidels, as if he should do the same thing in favor of,
the Catholics. You will see that it is the same Protestant Church, so described, that the king is to maintain and communicate with, according to the Act of
Settlement of the 12th and 13th of William the Third.
The act of the 5th of Anne. made in prospect of the
Union, is entitled, "An act for securing the Churcll
of England as by law established. " It meant to guard
the Church implicitly against any other mode of Protestant religion which might creep in by means of the
Union. It proves beyond all doubt, that the legislature did not mean to guard the Church on one part
only, and to leave it defenceless and exposed upon
? ? ? ? 262 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
every other. This church, in that act, is declared to
be " fundamental and essential" forever, in the Constitution of the United Kingdom, so far as England
is concerned; and I suppose, as the law stands, even
since the independence, it is so in Ireland.
All this shows that the religion which the king is
bound to maintain has a positive part in it, as well
as a negative, - and that the positive part of it (in
which we are in perfect agreement with the Catholics
and with the Church of Scotland) is infinitely the
most valuable and essential. Such an agreement we
had with Protestant Dissenters in England, of those
descriptions who came under the Toleration Act of
King William and Queen Mary: an act coeval with
the Revolution; and which ought, on the principles
of the gentlemen who oppose the relief to the Catholics, to have been held sacred and unalterable. Whether we agree with the present Protestant Dissenters in the points at the Revolution held essential and fundamental among Christians, or in any other fundamental, at present it is impossible for us to know:
because, at their own very earnest desire, we have repealed the Toleration Act of William and Mary, and
discharged them from the signature required by that
act; and because, for the far greater part, they publicly declare against all manner of confessions of faith,
even the Consensus.
For reasons forcible enough at all times, but at
this time particularly forcible with me, I dwell a
little the longer upon this matter, and take the
more pains, to put us both in mind that it was
not settled at the Revolution that the state should
be Protestant, in the latitude of the term, but in
a defined and limited sense only, and that in that
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 263
sense only the king is sworn to maintain it. To
suppose that the king has sworn with his utmost
power to maintain what it is wholly out of his
power to discover, or which, if he could discover,
lie might discover to consist of things directly contradictory to each other, some of them perhaps impious, blasphemous, and seditious upon principle, would be not only a gross, but a most mischievous absurdity. If mere dissent from the Churcel of
Rome be a merit, he that dissents the most perfectly
is the most meritorious. In many points we hold
strongly with that church. He that dissents throughout with that church will dissent with the Church
of England, and then it will be a part of his merit
that he dissents with ourselves: a whimsical species of merit for any set of men to establish. We
quarrel to extremity with those who we know agree
with us in many things; but we are to be so malicious even in the principle of our friendships, that
we are to cherish in our bosom those who accord
with us in nothing, because, whilst they despise ourselves, they abhor,; even more than we do, those with whom we have some disagreement. A man is certainly the most perfect Protestant who protests
against the whole Christian religion. Whether a
person's having no Christian religion be a title to
favor, in exclusion to the largest description of Christians, who hold all the doctrines of Christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will,
I believe, choose to affirm. The countenance given
from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion
may by degrees encourage light and unthinking peo
? ? ? ? 264 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGR1SHE.
pie to a total indifference to everything positive in
matters of doctrine, and, in the end, of practice too.
If continued, it would play the game of that sort of
active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism which
is the disgrace and calamity of our time, and which
we see to be as capable of subverting a government
as any mode can be of misguided zeal for better
things.
Now let us fairly see what course has been taken
relative to those against whom, in part at least, the
king has sworn to maintain a church, positive in its
doctrine and its discipline. The first thing done, even
when the oath was fresh in the mouth of the sovereigns, was to give a toleration to Protestant Dissenters whose doctrines they ascertained. As to the mere civil privileges which the Dissenters held as subjects
before the Revolution, these were not touched at all.
The laws have fully permitted, in a qualification for
all offices, to such Dissenters, an occasional conformity: a thing I believe singular, where tests are admitted. The act, called the Test Act, itself, is, with regard to them, grown to be hardly anything more
than a dead letter. Whenever thc, Dissenters cease
by their conduct to give any alarm to the government, in Church and State, I think it very probable
that even this matter, rather disgustful than inconvenient to them, may be removed, or at least so modified as to distinguish the qualification to those offices which really guide the state from those which are
merely instrumental, or that some other and better
tests may be put in their place.
So far as to England. In Ireland you have outran
us. Without waiting for an English example, you
have totally, and without any modification whatso
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 265
ever, repealed the test as to Protestant Dissenters.
Not having the repealing act by me, I ought not to
say positively that there is no exception in it; but if
it be what I suppose it is, you know very well that a
Jew in religion, or a Mahometan, or even a public,
declared atheist and blasphemer, is perfectly qualified
to be Lord-Lieutenant, a lord-justice, or even keeper
of the king's conscience, and by virtue of his office
(if with you it be as it is with us) administrator to
a great part of the ecclesiastical patronage of the
crown.
Now let us deal a little fairly. We must admit
that Protestant Dissent was one of the quarters from
which danger was apprehended at the Revolution,
and against which a part of the coronation oath was
peculiarly directed. By this unqualified repeal you
certainly did not mean to deny that it was the duty
of the crown to preserve the Church against Protestant Dissenters; or taking this to be the true sense
of the two Revolution acts of King William, and of
the previous and subsequent Union acts of Queen
Anne, you did not declare by this most unqualified
repeal, by which you broke down all the barriers,
not invented, indeed, but carefully preserved, at the
Revolution, -you did not then and by that proceeding declare that you had advised the king to perjury towards God and perfidy towards' the Church. No!
far, very far from it!
Church. It is a great deal to suppose that even the
present Castle would nominate bishops for the Roman Church of Ireland with a religious regard for its
welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they dare not
do it.
But suppose them to be as well inclined as I know
that I am to do the Catholics all kind of justice, I
declare I would not, if it were in my power, take
that patronage on myself. I know I ought not to do
it. . I belong to another community, and it would be
intolerable usurpation for me to affect such authority, where I conferred no benefit, or even if I did confer (as in some degree the seraglio does) temporal advantages. But allowing that the present Castle finds itself fit to administer the government of a church
which they solemnly forswear, and forswear with very
hard words and many evil epithets, and that as often
as they qualify themselves for the power which is to
give this very patronage, or to give anything else
that they desire, - yet they cannot insure themselves
that a man like the late Lord Chesterfield will not
succeed to them. This man, while he was duping
the credulity of Papists with fine words in private,
and commending their good behavior during a rebellion in Great Britain, (as it well deserved to be commended and rewarded,) was capable of urging penal
laws against them in a speech from the throne, and
of stimulating with provocatives the wearied and halfexhausted bigotry of the then Parliament of Ireland.
They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do;
for they had already almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigor of their country:
but, after much struggle, they produced a child of
their old age, the shocking and unnatural act about
? ? ? ? 236 ON THE PENAL LAWS
marriages, which tended to finish the scheme for
making the people not only two distinct parties forever, but keeping them as two distinct species in the
same land. Mr. Gardiner's humanity was shocked
at it, as one of the worst parts of that truly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference,
where almost all the parts were outrages on the
rights of humanity and the laws of Nature.
Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot,
should be in power again in that country, do you
believe that he would faithfully and religiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a church
which, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold
need of ministers who will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who will exercise a really
paternal authority amongst them? But if the superior power was always in a disposition to dispense
conscientiously, and like an upright trustee and
guardian of these rights which he holds for those
with whom he is at variance, has he the capacity
and means of doing it? How can the Lord-Lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, so as to
discern which of the Popish priests is fit to be made
a bishop? It cannot be: the idea is ridiculous. He
will hand them over to lords-lieutenant of counties,
justices of the peace, and other persons, who, for the
purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserable people, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst the clergy to set over the rest. Whoever is complained against by his brother
will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by his superior, will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his opinions and
loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and
? ? ? ? AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS. 237
will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he
was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and
obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon
their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen of
the country, will be the objects of preferment. And
then I run no risk in foretelling that whatever order,
quiet, and morality you have in the country will be
lost. A Popish clergy who are not restrained by the
most austere subordination will become a nuisance,
a real public grievance of the heaviest kind, in any
country that entertains them; and instead of the
great benefit which Ireland does and has long derived from them, if they are educated without any idea of discipline and obedience, and then put under
bishops who do not owe their station to their good
opinion, and whom they cannot respect, that nation
will see disorders, of which, bad as things are, it has
yet no idea. I do not say this, as thinking the leading men in Ireland would exercise this trust worse than others. Not at all. No man, no. set of men
living are fit to administer the affairs or regulate
the interior economy of a church to which they are
enemies.
As to government, if I might recommend a prudent caution to them, it would be, to innovate as
little as possible, upon speculation, in establishments
from which, as they stand, they experience no material inconvenience to the repose of the country, -- quieta non movere.
I could say a great deal more; but I am tired, and
am afraid your Lordship is tired too. I have not sat
to this letter a single quarter of an hour without
interruption. It has grown long, and probably contains many repetitions, from my total want of leisure
? ? ? ? 238 ON THE PENAL LAWS
to digest and consolidate my thoughts; and as to my
expressions, I could wish to be able perhaps to measure them more exactly. But my intentions are fair,
and I certainly mean to offend nobody.
Thinking over this matter more maturely, I see no
reason for altering my opinion in any part. The act,
as far as it goes, is good undoubtedly. It amounts, I
think, very nearly to a toleration, with respect to religious ceremonies; but it puts a new bolt on civil
rights, and rivets it to the old one in such a manner, that neither, I fear, will be easily loosened.
What I could have wished would be, to see the civil
advantages take the lead; the other, of a religious
toleration, I conceive, would follow, (in a manner,)
of course. From what I have observed, it is pride,
arrogance, and a spirit of domination, and not a bigoted spirit of religion, that has caused and kept up
those oppressive statutes. I am sure I have known
those who have oppressed Papists in their civil rights
exceedingly indulgent to them in their religious ceremonies, and who really wished them to continue
Catholics, in order to furnish pretences for oppression. These persons never saw a man (by converting) escape out of their power, but with grudging and regret. I have known men to whom I am not
uncharitable in saying (though they are dead) that
they would have become Papists in order to oppress
Protestants, if, being Protestants, it was not in their
power to oppress Papists. It is injustice, and not a
mistaken conscience, that has been the principle of
persecution, - at least, as far as it has fallen under
my observation. - However, as I began, so I end. I
? ? ? ? AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS. 239
do not know the map of the country. Mr. Gardiner,
who conducts this great and difficult work, and those
who support him, are better judges of the business
than I can pretend to be, who have not set my foot
in Ireland these sixteen years. I have been given
to understand that I am not considered as a friend to
that country; and I know that pains have been taken
to lessen the credit that I might have had there.
I am so convinced of the weakness of interfering
in any business, without the opinion of the people in
whose business I interfere, that I do not know how to
acquit myself of what I have now done.
I have the honor to be, with high regard and esteem, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient
And humble servant, &c.
EDMUND BURKE.
? ? ? ? LETTER
TO
SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART. , M. P. ,
ON THE SUBJECT OF
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND,
AND
THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, CONSISTENTLY WITH
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION, AS ESTABLISHED AT THE REVOLUTION.
I792.
VOL. IV. 16
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MY DEAR SIR, --Your remembrance of me, with
sentiments of so much kindness, has given me
the most sincere satisfaction. It perfectly agrees with
the friendly and hospitable reception which my son
and I received from you some time since, when, after
an absence of twenty-two years, I had the happiness
of embracing you, among my few surviving friends.
I really imagined that I should'not again interest
myself in any public business. I had, to the best of
my moderate faculties, paid my club to the society
which I was born in some way or other to serve; and
I thought I had a right to put on my night-gown and
slippers, and wish a cheerful evening to the good company I must leave behind. But if our resolutions
of vigor and exertion are so often broken or procrastinated in the execution, I think we may be excused, if we are not very punctual in fulfilling our engagements
to indolence and inactivity. I have, indeed, no power
of action, and am almost a cripple even with regard
to thinking; but you descend with force into the stagnant pool, and you cause such a fermentation as to cure at least one impotent creature of his lameness,
though it cannot enable him either to run or to
wrestle.
You see by the paper * I take that I am likely to
be long, with malice prepense. You have brought
* The letter is written on folio sheets.
? ? ? ? 244 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
under my view a subject always difficult, at present
critical. It has filled my thoughts, which I wish to
lay open to you with the clearness and simplicity
which your friendship demands from me. I thank
you for the communication of your ideas. I should
be still more pleased, if they had been more your
own. What you hint I believe to be the case: that,
if you had not deferred to the judgment of others,
our opinions would not differ more materially at
this day than they did when we used to confer on
the same subject so many years ago. If I still persevere in my old opinions, it is no small comfort to
me that it is not with regard to doctrines properly
yours that I discover my indocility.
The case upon which your letter of the 10th of
December turns is hardly before me with precision
enough to enable me to form any very certain judgment upon it. It seems to be some plan of further indulgence proposed for the Catholics of Ireland.
You observe, that your " general principles are not
changed, but that times and circumstances are altered. "
I perfectly agree with you, that times and circumstances, considered with reference to the public, ought
very much to govern our conduct, - though I am far
from slighting, when applied with discretion to those
circumstances, general principles and maxims of policy. I cannot help observing, however, that you have said rather less upon the inapplicability of your own
old principles to the circumstances that are likely to
influence your conduct against these principles than
of the general maxims of state, which I can very readily believe not to have great weight with you personally. In my present state of imperfect information, you
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 245
will pardon the errors into which I may easily fall.
The principles you lay down are, " that the Roman
Catholics should enjoy everything under the state,
but should not be the state itself. " And you add,
" that, when you exclude them from being a part of
the state, you rather conform to the spirit of the age
than to any abstract doctrine "; but you consider the
Constitution as already established, - that our state
is Protestant. " It was declared so at the Revolution.
It was so provided in the acts for settling the succession of the crown:- the king's coronation oath
was enjoined in order to keep it so. The king, as
first magistrate of the state, is obliged to take the
oath of abjuration,* and to subscribe the Declaration; and by laws subsequent, every other magistrate and member of the state, legislative and executive, are bound under the same obligation. "
As to the plan to which these maxims are applied,
I cannot speak, as I told you, positively about it:
because neither from your letter, nor from any information I have been able to collect, do I find anything settled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or on that of any persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament. But if
I have leave to conjecture, something is in agitation
towards admitting them, under certain qualifications,
to have some share in the election of members of Parliament. This I understand is the scheme of those
who are entitled to come within your description
of persons of consideration, property, and character,
- and firmly attached to the king and Constitution,
as by "law established, with a grateful sense of your
* A small error of fact as to the abjuration oath, but of no importance in the argument.
? ? ? ? 246 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
former concessions, and a patient reliance on the benignity of Parliament for the further mitigation of
the laws that still affect them. " -- As to the low,
thoughtless, wild, and profligate, who have joined
themselves with those of other professions, but of the
same character, you are not to imagine that for a
moment I can suppose them to be met with anything
else than the manly and enlightened energy of a firm
government, supported by the united efforts of all
virtuous men, if ever their proceedings should become so considerable as to demand its notice. I really think that such associations should be crushed in their very commencement.
Setting, therefore, this case out of the question,
it becomes an object of very serious consideration,
whether, because wicked men of various descriptions
are engaged in seditious courses, the rational, sober,
and valuable part of one description should not be
indulged in their sober and rational expectations.
You, who have looked deeply into the spirit of the
Popery laws, must be perfectly sensible that a great
part of the present mischief which we abhor in common (if it at all exists) has arisen from them. Their
declared object was, to reduce the Catholics of Ireland
to a miserable populace, without property, without
estimation, without education. The professed object
was, to deprive the few men, who, in spite of those
laws, might hold or obtain any property amongst
them, of all sort of influence or authority over the
rest. They divided the nation into two distinct bodies, without common interest, sympathy, or connection. One of these bodies was to possess all the franchises, all the property, all the education: the
other was to be composed of drawers of water and
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 247
cutters of turf for them. Are we to be astonished,
when, by the efforts of so much violence in conquest,
and so much policy in regulation, continued without
intermission for near an hundred years, we had reduced them to a mob, that, whenever they came to
act at all, many of them would act exactly like a
mob, without temper, measure, or foresight? Surely
it might be just now a matter of temperate discussion, whether you ought not to apply a remedy to
the real cause of the evil. If the disorder you speak
of be real and considerable, you ought to raise an
aristocratic interest, that is, aln interest of property
and education, amongst them, -and to strengthen,
by every prudent means, the authority and influence
of men of that description. It will deserve your best
thoughts, to examine whether this can be done without giving such persons the means of demonstrating
to the rest that something more is to be got by their
temperate conduct than can be expected from the
wild and senseless projects of those who do not belong to their body, who have no interest in their wellbeing, and only wish to make them the dupes of their turbulent ambition.
If the absurd persons you mention find no way of
providing for liberty, but by overturning this happy
Constitution, and introducing a frantic democracy,
let us take care how we prevent better people from
any rational expectations of partaking in the benefits
of that Constitution as it stands. The maxims you
establish cut the matter short. They have no sort of
connection with the good or the ill behavior of the
persons who seek relief, or with the proper or improper means by which they seek it. They form a
perpetual bar to all pleas and to all expectations.
? ? ? ? 248 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
You begin by asserting, that "' the Catholics ought
to enjoy all things under the state, but that they
ought not to be the state": a position which, I believe, in the latter part of it, and in the latitude there expressed, no man of common sense has ever thought
proper to dispute; because the contrary implies that
the state ought to be in them exclusively. But before
you have finished the line, you express yourself as if
the other member of your proposition, namely, that
" they ought not to be a part of the state," were necessarily included in the first, - whereas I conceive it
to be as different as a part is from the whole, that is,
just as different as possible. I know, indeed, that it
is common with those who talk very differently from
you, that is, with heat and animosity, to confound
those things, and to argue the admission of the Catholics into any, however minute and subordinate, parts of the state, as a surrender into their hands of the
whole government of the kingdom. To them I have
nothing at all to say.
Wishing to proceed with a deliberative spirit and
temper in so very serious a question, I shall attempt
to analyze, as well as I can, the principles you lay
down, in order to fit them for the grasp of an understanding so little comprehensive as mine. -" State,"
-" Protestant," -- " Revolution. " These are terms
which, if not well explained, may lead us into many
errors. In the word State I conceive there is much
ambiguity. The state is sometimes used to signify
the whole commonwealth, comprehending all its orders,
with the several privileges belonging to each. Sometimes it signifies only the higher and ruling part of the commonwealth, which we commonly call the Government. In the first sense, to be under the state,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 249
but not the state itself, nor any part of it, that is, to
be nothing at all in the commonwealth, is a situation
perfectly intelligible, - but to those who fill that situation, not very pleasant, when it is understood. It
is a state of civil servitude, by the very force of the
definition. Servorum non est respublica is a very old
and a very true maxim. This servitude, which makes
men subject to a state without being citizens, may be
more or less tolerable from many circumstances; but
these circumstances, more or less favorable, do not alter the nature of the thing. The mildness by which absolute masters exercise their dominion leaves them
masters still. We may talk a little presently of the.
manner in which the majority of the people of Ire --
land (the Catholics) are affected by this situation,.
which at present undoubtedly is theirs, and which
you are of opinion ought so to continue forever.
In the other sense of the word State, by which is
understood the Supreme Government only, I must observe this upon the question: that to exclude whole classes of ipen entirely from this part of government
cannot be considered as absolute slavery. It only implies a lower and degraded state of citizenship: such is (with more or less strictness) the condition of all
countries in which an hereditary nobility possess the
exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government,- provided that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their
cabals and factions are guarded against with a severe
vigilance, and that the people (who have no share in
granting their own money) are subjected to but light
impositions, and are otherwise treated with attention,
and with indulgence to their humors and prejudices.
The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly
? ? ? ? 250 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
confines all the great functions and offices, such as
are truly state functions and state offices, to those
who by hereditary right or admission are noble Venetialls. But there are many offices, and some of
them not mean nor unprofitable, (that of Chancellor
is onle,) which are reserved for the cittadini. Of
these all citizens of Venice are capable. The inhabitants of the terra firma, who are mere subjects of conquest, that is, as you express it, under the state,
but " not a part of it," are not, however, subjects in
so very rigorous a sense as not to be capable of numberless subordinate employments. It is, indeed, one of the advantages attending the narrow bottom of
their aristocracy, (narrow as compared with their
acquired dominions, otherwise broad enough,) that
an exclusion from such employments cannot possibly
be made amongst their subjects. There are, besides,
advantages in states so constituted, by which those
who are considered as of an inferior race are indemnified for their exclusion from the government, and from nobler employments. In all these, countries,
either by express law, or by usage more operative,
the noble castes are almost universally, in their turn,
excluded from commerce, manufacture, farming of
land, and in general from all lucrative civil professions. The nobles have the monopoly of honor;
the plebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus some sort of a balance is
formed among conditions; a sort of compensation
is furnished to those who, in a limited sense, are excluded from the government of the state.
Between the extreme of a total exclusion, to which
your maxim goes, and an universal unmodified capacity, to which the fanatics pretend, there are many
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 251
different degrees and stages, and a great variety of
temperaments, upon which prudence may give full
scope to its exertions. For you know that the decisions of prudence (contrary to the system of the insane reasoners) differ from those of judicature; and that almost all the former are determined on the
more or the less, the earlier or the later, and on a
balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good and
evil.
In all considerations which turn upon the question
of vesting or continuing the state solely and exclusively in some one description of citizens, prudent
legislators will consider how far the general form and
principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be cast
into an oligarchical shape, or to remain always in it.
We know that the government of Ireland (the same
as the British) is not in its constitution wholly aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither
is it in its spirit. If it had been inveterately aristocratical, exclusions might be more patiently submitted to. The lot of one plebeian would be the lot
of all; and an habitual reverence and admiration of
certain families might make the people content to
see government wholly in hands to whom it seemed
naturally to belong. But our Constitution has a
plebeian member, which forms an essential integrant
part of it. A plebeian oligarchy is a monster; and
no people, not absolutely domestic or predial slaves,
will long endure it. The Protestants of Ireland are
not alone sufficiently the people to form a democracy; and they are too numerous to answer the ends
and purposes of an aristocracy. Admiration, that
first source of obedience, can be only the claim or
the imposture of the few. I hold it to be absolutely
? ? ? ? 252 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
impossible for two millions of plebeians, composing
certainly a very clear and decided majority in that
class, to become so far in love with six or seven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outward
appearance plebeians like themselves, and many of
them tradesmen, servants, and otherwise inferior to
some of them) as to see with satisfaction, or even
with patience, an exclusive power vested in them,
by which constitutionally they become the absolute
masters, and, by the manners derived from their
circumstances, must be capable of exercising upon
them, daily and hourly, an insulting and vexatious
superiority. Neither are the majority of the Irish
indemnified (as in some aristocracies) for this state
of humiliating vassalage (often inverting the nature
of things and relations) by having the lower walks
of industry wholly abandoned to them. They are
rivalled, to say the least of the matter, in every laborious and lucrative course of life; while every franchise, every honor, every trust, every place, down to the very lowest and least confidential, (besides whole
professions,) is reserved for the master caste.
Our Constitution is not made for great, general,
and proscriptive exclusions; sooner or later it will
destroy them, or they will destroy the Constitution.
In our Constitution there has always been a difference between a franchise and an office, and between
the capacity for the one and for the other. Franchises were supposed to belong to the subject, as a
subject, and not as a member of the governing part of
the state. The policy of government has considered
them as things very different; for, whilst Parliament
excluded by the test acts (and for a while these test
acts were not a dead letter, as now they are in Eng
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 253
land) Protestant Dissenters from all civil and military employments, they never touched their right of
voting for members of Parliament or sitting in either
House: a point I state, not as approving or condemning, with regard to them, the measure of exclusion
from employments, but to prove that the distinction
has been admitted in legislature, as, in truth, it is
founded in reason.
I will not here examine whether the principles of
the British [the Irish] Constitution be wise or not.
I must assume that they are, and that those who
partake the franchises which make it partake of a
benefit. They who are excluded from votes (under proper qualifications inherent in the Constitution that gives them) are excluded, not from the state, but from the British Constitution. They cannot by any possibility, whilst they hear its praises
continually rung in their ears, and are present at
the declaration which is so generally and so bravely made by those who possess the privilege, that
the best blood in their veins ought to be shed to
preserve their share in it, --they, the disfranchised
part, cannot, I say, think themselves in an happy
state, to be utterly excluded from all its direct
and all its consequential advantages. The popular
part of the Constitution must be to them by far the
most odious part of it. To them it is not an actual,
and, if possible, still less a virtual representation. It
is, indeed, the direct contrary. It is power unlimited
placed in the hands of an adverse description because
it is an adverse description. And if they who compose the privileged body have not an interest, they
must but too frequently have motives of pride, passion, petulance, peevish jealousy, or tyrannic suspi
? ? ? ? 254 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
cion, to urge them to treat the excluded people with
contempt and rigor.
This is not a mere theory; though, whilst men are
men, it is a theory that cannot be false. I do not
desire to revive all the particulars in my memory; I
wish them to sleep forever; but it is impossible I
should wholly forget what happened in some parts
of Ireland, with very few and short intermissions,
from the year 1761 to the year 1766, both inclusive. In a country of miserable police, passing from
the extremes of laxity to the extremes of rigor, among
a neglected and therefore disorderly populace, if any
disturbance or sedition, from any grievance real or
imaginary, happened to arise, it was presently perverted from its true nature, often criminal enough
in itself to draw upon it a severe, appropriate pun
ishment: it was metamorphosed into a conspiracy
against the state, and prosecuted as such. Amongst
the Catholics, as being by far the most numerous and
the most wretched, all sorts of offenders against the
laws must commonly be found. The punishment of
low people for the offences usual among low people
would warrant no inference against any descriptions
of religion or of politics. Men of consideration from
their age, their profession, or their character, men
of proprietary landed estates, substantial renters, opulent merchants, physicians, and titular bishops, could not easily be suspected of riot in open day, or of nocturnal assemblies for the purpose of pulling down hedges, making breaches in park-walls, firing barns,
maiming cattle, and outrages of a similar nature,
which characterize the disorders of an oppressed or
a licentious populace. But when the evidence given
on the trial for such misdemeanors qualified them as
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 255
overt acts of high treason, and when witnesses were
found (such witnesses as they were) to depose to the
taking of oaths of allegiance by the rioters to the king
of France, to their being paid by his money, and embodied and exercised under his officers, to overturn
the state for the purposes of that potentate, - in that
case, the rioters might (if the witness was believed)
be supposed only the troops, and persons more reputable the leaders and commanders, in such a rebellion.
All classes in the obnoxious description, who could
not be suspected of the lower crime of riot, might be
involved in the odium, in the suspicion, and sometimes in the punishment, of a higher and far more
criminal species of offence. These proceedings did
not arise from any one of the Popery laws since
repealed, but from this circumstance, that, when it
answered the purposes of an election party or a
malevolent person of influence to forge such plots,
the people had no protection. The people of that
description have no hold on the gentlemen who
aspire to be popular representatives. The candidates neither love nor respect nor fear them, individually or collectively. I do not think this evil (an evil amongst a thousand others) at this day entirely
over; for I conceive I have lately seen some indication of a disposition perfectly similar to the old one, --
that is, a disposition to carry the imputation of crimes
from persons to descriptions, and wholly to alter the
character and quality of the offences themselves.
This universal exclusion seems to me a serious evil,
- because many collateral oppressions, besides what
I have just now stated, have arisen from it. In things
of this nature it would not be either easy or proper
to quote chapter and verse; but I have great reason
? ? ? ? 256 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRIS1IE.
to believe, particularly since the Octennial Act, that
several have refused at all to let their lands to Roman Catholics, because it would so far disable them
from promoting such interests in counties as they
were inclined to favor. They who consider also the
state of all sorts of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and particularly publicans in towns, must soon discern the
disadvantages under which those labor who have no
votes. It cannot be otherwise, whilst the spirit of
elections and the tendencies of human nature continue as they are. If property be artificially separated from franchise, the franchise must in some way or other, and in some proportion, naturally attract
property to it. Many are the collateral disadvantages, amongst a privileged people, which must attend
on those who have no privileges.
Among the rich, each individual, with or without a
fianchise, is of importance; the poor and the middling
are no otherwise so than as they obtain some collective capacity, and can be aggregated to some corps.
If legal ways are not found, illegal will be resorted
to; and seditious clubs and confederacies, such as
no man living holds in greater horror than I do, will
grow and flourish, in spite, I am afraid, of anything
which can be done to prevent the evil. Lawful enjoyment is the surest method to prevent unlawful
gratification. Where there is property, there will be
less theft; where there is marriage, there will always
be less fornication.
I have said enough of the question of state, as it
affects the people merely as such. But it is complicated with a political question relative to religion, to
which it is very necessary I should say something,
because the term Protestant, which you apply, is too
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 257
general for the conclusions which one of your accurate understanding would wish to draw from it, and
because a great deal of argument will depend on the
use that is made of that term.
It is not a fundamental part of the settlement at
the Revolution that the state should be Protestant
without any qualification of the term. With a qualification it is unquestionably true; not in all its latitude. With the qualification, it was true before the Revolution. Our predecessors in legislation were not
so irrational (not to say impious) as to form an operose ecclesiastical establishment, and even to render
the state itself in some degree subservient to it, when
their religion (if such it might be called) was noth ?
ing but a mere negation of some other, - without any
positive idea, either of doctrine, discipline, worship,
or morals, in the scheme which they professed themselves, and which they imposed upon others, even
under penalties and incapacities. No! No! This
never could have been done, even by reasonable atheists. They who think religion of no importance to
the state have abandoned it to the conscience or
caprice of the individual; they make no provision
for it whatsoever, but leave every club to make, or
nlot, a voluntary contribution towards its support, according to their fancies. This would be consistent.
The other always appeared to me to be a monster of
contradiction and absurdity. It was for that reason,
that, some years ago, I strenuously opposed the clergy who petitioned, to the number of about three
hundred, to be freed from' the subscription to the
Thirty-Nine Articles, without proposing to substitute
any other in their place. There never has been a.
religion of the state (the few years of the Parliament:
VOL. IV. 17
? ? ? ? 258 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
only excepted) but that of the Episcopal Church of
England: the Episcopal Church of England, before
the Reformation, connected. with the see of Rome;
since then, disconnected, and protesting against some
of her doctrines, and against the whole of her authority, as binding in our national church: nor did the
funldamental laws of this kingdom (in Ireland it has
been the same) ever know, at any period, any other
church as an object of establishment, - or, in that light,
any other Protestant religion. Nay, our Protestant
toleration itself, at the Revolution, and until within
a few years, required a signature of thirty-six, and
a part of the thirty-seventh, out of the Thirty-Nine
Articles. So little idea had they at the Revolution
of establishing Protestantism indefinitely, that they did
not indefinitely tolerate it under that name. I do not
mean to praise that strictness, where nothing more
than merely religious toleration is concerned. Toleration, being a part of moral and political prudence,
ought to be tender and large. A tolerant government ought not to be too scrupulous in its investigations, but may bear without blame, not only very ill-grounded doctrines, but even many things that
are positively vices, where they. are adulta et prcevalida. The good of the commonwealth is the rule
which rides over the rest; and to this every other
must completely submit.
The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. She has by the articles of union secured to herself the perpetual establishment of the Confession
of Faith, and the Presbyterian Church government. .
In England, even during the troubled interregnum,
it was not thought fit to establish a negative religion;
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 259
but the Parliament settled the Presbyterian as the
Church discipline, the _Directory as the rule of public
worship, and the Westminster Catechism as the institute of faith. This is to show that at no time was
the Protestant religion, undefined, established here or
anywhere else, as I believe. I am sure, that, when
the three religions were established in Germlany, they
were expressly characterized and declared to be the
Evangelic, the Reformed, and the Catholic; each of
which has its confession of faith and its settled discipline: so that you always may know the best and the worst of them, to enable you to make the most of
what is good, and to correct or to qualify or to guard
against whatever may seem evil or dangerous.
As to the coronation oath, to which you allude, as
opposite to admitting a Roman Catholic to the use
of any franchise whatsoever, I cannot think that the
king would be perjured, if he gave his assent to any
regulation which Parliament might think fit to make
with regard to that affair. The king is bound by
law, as clearly specified in several acts of Parliament,
to be in communion with the Church of England. It
is a part of the tenure by which he holds his crown;
and though no provision was made till the Revolution, which could be called positive and valid in law,
to ascertain this great principle, I have always considered it as in fact fundamental, that the king of England should be of the Christian religion, according to the national legal church for the time being.
I conceive it was so before the Reformation. Since
the Reformation it became doubly necessary; because
the king is the head of that church, in some sort an
ecclesiastical person, - and it would be incongruous
and absurd to have the head of the Church of one
? ? ? ? 260 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRIShE.
faith, and the members of another. The king may
inherit the crown as a Protestant; but he cannot hold
it, according to law, without being a Protestant of the
Church of -England.
Before we take it for granted that the king is
bound by his coronation oath not to admit any of
his Catholic subjects to the rights and liberties which
ought to belong to them as Englishmen, (not as religionists,) or to settle the conditions or proportions
of such admission by an act of Parliament, I wish
you to place before your eyes that oath itself, as it
is settled in the act of William and Mary.
"Will you to the utmost of your power maintain
123
the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel,
4
and the Protestant Reformed Religion established by
5
law? And will you preserve unto the bishops and
clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed
to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by
law do or shall appertain unto them, or any of them?
-All this I promise to do. "
Here are the coronation engagements of the king.
In them I do not find one word to preclude his Majesty from consenting to any arrangement which Parliament may make with regard to the civil privileges of any part of his subjects.
It may not be amiss, on account of the light which
it will throw on this discussion, to look a little more
narrowly into the matter of that oath, --in order to
discover how far it has hitherto operated, or how far
in future it ought to operate, as a bar to any proceedings of the crown and Parliament in favor of
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 261
those against whom it may be supposed that the king
has engaged to support the Protestant Church of England in the two kingdoms in which it is established
by law. First, the king swears he will maintain to
the utmost of his power " the laws of God. " I suppose it means the natural moral laws. -- Secondly,
he swears to maintain " the true profession of the
Gospel. " By which I suppose is understood affir2atively the Christian religion. --Thirdly, that he
will maintain "'the Protestant reformed religion. "
This leaves me no power of supposition or conjecture; for that Protestant reformed religion is defilted and described by the subsequent words, "established by law"; and in this instance, to define it beyond all possibility of doubt, he swears to maintain the " bishops and clergy, and the churches committed to their charge," in their rights present and
future.
The oath as effectually prevents the king from doing anything to the prejudice of the Church, in favor,
of sectaries, Jews, Mahometans, or plain avowed infidels, as if he should do the same thing in favor of,
the Catholics. You will see that it is the same Protestant Church, so described, that the king is to maintain and communicate with, according to the Act of
Settlement of the 12th and 13th of William the Third.
The act of the 5th of Anne. made in prospect of the
Union, is entitled, "An act for securing the Churcll
of England as by law established. " It meant to guard
the Church implicitly against any other mode of Protestant religion which might creep in by means of the
Union. It proves beyond all doubt, that the legislature did not mean to guard the Church on one part
only, and to leave it defenceless and exposed upon
? ? ? ? 262 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
every other. This church, in that act, is declared to
be " fundamental and essential" forever, in the Constitution of the United Kingdom, so far as England
is concerned; and I suppose, as the law stands, even
since the independence, it is so in Ireland.
All this shows that the religion which the king is
bound to maintain has a positive part in it, as well
as a negative, - and that the positive part of it (in
which we are in perfect agreement with the Catholics
and with the Church of Scotland) is infinitely the
most valuable and essential. Such an agreement we
had with Protestant Dissenters in England, of those
descriptions who came under the Toleration Act of
King William and Queen Mary: an act coeval with
the Revolution; and which ought, on the principles
of the gentlemen who oppose the relief to the Catholics, to have been held sacred and unalterable. Whether we agree with the present Protestant Dissenters in the points at the Revolution held essential and fundamental among Christians, or in any other fundamental, at present it is impossible for us to know:
because, at their own very earnest desire, we have repealed the Toleration Act of William and Mary, and
discharged them from the signature required by that
act; and because, for the far greater part, they publicly declare against all manner of confessions of faith,
even the Consensus.
For reasons forcible enough at all times, but at
this time particularly forcible with me, I dwell a
little the longer upon this matter, and take the
more pains, to put us both in mind that it was
not settled at the Revolution that the state should
be Protestant, in the latitude of the term, but in
a defined and limited sense only, and that in that
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 263
sense only the king is sworn to maintain it. To
suppose that the king has sworn with his utmost
power to maintain what it is wholly out of his
power to discover, or which, if he could discover,
lie might discover to consist of things directly contradictory to each other, some of them perhaps impious, blasphemous, and seditious upon principle, would be not only a gross, but a most mischievous absurdity. If mere dissent from the Churcel of
Rome be a merit, he that dissents the most perfectly
is the most meritorious. In many points we hold
strongly with that church. He that dissents throughout with that church will dissent with the Church
of England, and then it will be a part of his merit
that he dissents with ourselves: a whimsical species of merit for any set of men to establish. We
quarrel to extremity with those who we know agree
with us in many things; but we are to be so malicious even in the principle of our friendships, that
we are to cherish in our bosom those who accord
with us in nothing, because, whilst they despise ourselves, they abhor,; even more than we do, those with whom we have some disagreement. A man is certainly the most perfect Protestant who protests
against the whole Christian religion. Whether a
person's having no Christian religion be a title to
favor, in exclusion to the largest description of Christians, who hold all the doctrines of Christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will,
I believe, choose to affirm. The countenance given
from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion
may by degrees encourage light and unthinking peo
? ? ? ? 264 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGR1SHE.
pie to a total indifference to everything positive in
matters of doctrine, and, in the end, of practice too.
If continued, it would play the game of that sort of
active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism which
is the disgrace and calamity of our time, and which
we see to be as capable of subverting a government
as any mode can be of misguided zeal for better
things.
Now let us fairly see what course has been taken
relative to those against whom, in part at least, the
king has sworn to maintain a church, positive in its
doctrine and its discipline. The first thing done, even
when the oath was fresh in the mouth of the sovereigns, was to give a toleration to Protestant Dissenters whose doctrines they ascertained. As to the mere civil privileges which the Dissenters held as subjects
before the Revolution, these were not touched at all.
The laws have fully permitted, in a qualification for
all offices, to such Dissenters, an occasional conformity: a thing I believe singular, where tests are admitted. The act, called the Test Act, itself, is, with regard to them, grown to be hardly anything more
than a dead letter. Whenever thc, Dissenters cease
by their conduct to give any alarm to the government, in Church and State, I think it very probable
that even this matter, rather disgustful than inconvenient to them, may be removed, or at least so modified as to distinguish the qualification to those offices which really guide the state from those which are
merely instrumental, or that some other and better
tests may be put in their place.
So far as to England. In Ireland you have outran
us. Without waiting for an English example, you
have totally, and without any modification whatso
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 265
ever, repealed the test as to Protestant Dissenters.
Not having the repealing act by me, I ought not to
say positively that there is no exception in it; but if
it be what I suppose it is, you know very well that a
Jew in religion, or a Mahometan, or even a public,
declared atheist and blasphemer, is perfectly qualified
to be Lord-Lieutenant, a lord-justice, or even keeper
of the king's conscience, and by virtue of his office
(if with you it be as it is with us) administrator to
a great part of the ecclesiastical patronage of the
crown.
Now let us deal a little fairly. We must admit
that Protestant Dissent was one of the quarters from
which danger was apprehended at the Revolution,
and against which a part of the coronation oath was
peculiarly directed. By this unqualified repeal you
certainly did not mean to deny that it was the duty
of the crown to preserve the Church against Protestant Dissenters; or taking this to be the true sense
of the two Revolution acts of King William, and of
the previous and subsequent Union acts of Queen
Anne, you did not declare by this most unqualified
repeal, by which you broke down all the barriers,
not invented, indeed, but carefully preserved, at the
Revolution, -you did not then and by that proceeding declare that you had advised the king to perjury towards God and perfidy towards' the Church. No!
far, very far from it!
