No More Learning

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
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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
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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
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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
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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! You never would have done it,
if you did not think it could be done with perfect repose to the royal conscience, and perfect safety to the national established religion. You did this upon a
full consideration of the circumstances of your country. Now, if circumstances required it, why should
it be contrary to the king's oath, his Parliament judg
? ? ? ? 266 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
ing on those circumstances, to restore to his Catholic
people, in such measure and with such modifications
as the public wisdom shall think proper to add, some
part in these franchises which they formerly had held
without any limitation at all, and which, upon no sort
of urgent reason at the time, they were deprived of?
If such means can with any probability be shown,
from circumstances, rather to add strength to our
mixed ecclesiastical and secular Constitution than to
weaken it, surely they are means infinitely to be
preferred to penalties, incapacities, and proscriptions,
continued from generation to generation. They are
perfectly consistent with the other parts of the coronation oath, in which the king swears to maintain
" the laws of God and the true profession of the
Gospel, and to govern the people according to the
statutes in Parliament agreed upon, and the laws
and customs of the realm. " In consenting to such
a statute, the crown Would act at least as- agreeable
to the laws of God, and to the true profession of the
Gospel, and to the laws and customs of the kingdom,
as George the First did, when he passed the statute
which took from the body of the people everything
which to that hour, and even after the monstrous
acts of the 2nd and 8th of Anne, (the objects of our
common hatred,) they still enjoyed inviolate.
It is hard to distinguish with the last degree of
accuracy what laws are fundamental, and what not.
However, there is a distinction between them, authorized by the writers on jurisprudence, and recognized in some of our statutes. I admit the acts of King
William and Queen Anne to be ftundamental, but
they are not the only fundamental laws. The law
called Magna Charta, by which it is provided that
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGR1IHE. 267'
" no man shall be disseised of his liberties and free
customs but by the judgment of his peers or the laws
of the land," (meaning clearly, for some proved crime
tried and adjudged,) I take to be a fundanmental law.
Now, although this Magna Charta, or some of the
statutes establishing it, provide that that law shall
be perpetual, and all statutes contrary to it shall be
void, yet I cannot go so far as to deny the authority
of statutes made in defiance of Magna Charta and all
its principles. This, however, I will say, - that it is
a very venerable law, made by very wise and learned
men, and that the legislature, in their attempt to perpetuate it, even against the authority of future Parliaments, have shown their judgment that it is fundamental, on the same grounds and in the same manner that the act of the fifth of Anne has considered and declared the establishment of the Church
of England to be fundamental. Magna Charta, which
secured these franchises to the subjects, regarded the
rights of freeholders in counties to be as much a fundamental part of the Constitution as the establishment of the Church of England was thought either
at that time, or in the act of King William, or in the
act of Queen Anne.
The churchmen who led in that transaction certainly took care of the material interest of which they
were the natural guardians. It is the first article of
Magna Charta, " that the Church of England shall be
free," &c. , &c. But at that period, churchmen and
barons and knights took care of the franchises and
free customs of the people, too. Those franchises are
part of the Constitution itself, and inseparable from
it. It would be a very strange thing, if there should
not only exist anomalies in our laws, a thing not easy
? ? ? ? 268 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
to prevent, but that the fundamental parts of the
Constitution should be perpetually and irreconcilably at variance with each other. I cannot persuade myself that the lovers of our church are not as able to
find effectual ways of reconciling its safety with the
franchises of the people as the ecclesiastics of the thirteenth century were able to do; I cannot conceive how anything worse can be said of the Protestant
religion of the Church of England than this, - that,
wherever it is judged proper to give it a legal establishment, it becomes necessary to deprive the body of the people, if they adhere to their old opinions, of
"their liberties and of all their free customs," and to
reduce them to a state of civil servitude.
There is no man on earth, I believe, more willing
than I am to lay it down as a fundamental of the
Constitution, that the Church of England should be
united and even identified with it; but, allowing this,
I cannot allow that all laws of regulation, made from
time to time, in support of that fundamental law, are
of course equally fundamental and equally unchangeable. This would be to confound all the branches of legislation and of jurisprudence. The crown and the
personal safety of the monarch are fundamentals in
our Constitution: yet I hope that no man regrets
that the rabble of statutes got together during the
reign of Henry the Eighth, by which treasons are
multiplied with so prolific an energy, have been all
repealed in a body; although they were all, or most
of them, made in support of things truly fundalmenlltal
in our Constitution. So were several of the acts by
which the crown exercised its supremacy: such as
the act of Elizabeth for making the high commission
courts, and the like; as well as things made treason
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 269
in the time of Charles the Second. None of this species of secondary and subsidiary laws have been held fundamental. They have yielded to circumstances:
particularly where they were thought, even in their
consequences, or obliquely, to affect other fundamentals. How much more, certainly, ought they to give way, when, as in our case, they affect, not here and
there, in some particular point, or in their consequence, but universally, collectively, and directly,
the fundamental franchises of a people equal to the
whole inhabitants of several respectable kingdoms
and states: equal to the subjects of the kings of Sardinia or of Denmark; equal to those of the United Netherlands; and more than are to be found in all
the states of Switzerland. This way of proscribing
men by whole nations, as it were, from all the benefits of the Constitution to which they were born, I never can believe to be politic or expedient, much
less necessary for the existence of any state or church
in the world. Whenever I shall be convinced, which
will be late and reluctantly, that the safety of the
Church is utterly inconsistent with all the civil rights
whatsoever of the far larger part of the inhabitants of
our country, I shall be extremely sorry for it; because I shall think the Church to be truly in danger.
It is putting things into the position of an ugly alternative, into which I hope in God they never will be put.
I have said most of what occurs to me on the topics you touch upon, relative to the religion of the
king, and his coronation oath. I shall conclude the
observations which I wished to submit to you on this
point by assuring you that I think you the most remote that can be conceived from the metaphysicians
? ? ? ? 270 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
of our times, who are the most foolish of men, and
who, dealing in universals and essences, see no difference between more and less, - and who of course would think that the reason of the law which obliged
the king to be a communicant of the Church of England would be as valid to exclude a Catholic from being an excisemain, or to deprive a mani who has
five hundred a year, under that description, fromn
voting on a par with a factitious Protestant Dissenting freeholder of forty shillings.
Recollect, my dear friend, that it was a fundamental principle in the French monarchy, whilst it stood, that the state should be Catholic; yet the Edict of
Nantes gave, not a full ecclesiastical, but a complete
civil establishment, with places of which only they
were capable, to the Calvinists of France, - and there
were very few employments, indeed, of which they
were not capable. The world praised the Cardinal
de Richelieu, who took the first opportunity to strip
them of their fortified places and cautionary towns.
The same world held and does hold in execration (so
far as that business is concerned) the memory of
Louis the Fourteenth, for the total repeal of that
favorable edict; though the talk of " fiundamental
laws, established religion, religion of the prince,
safety to the state," &c. , &c. , was then as largely
held, and with as bitter a revival of the animosities
of the civil confusions during the struggles between
the parties, as now they can be in Ireland.
Perhaps there are persons who think that the same
reason does not hold, when the religious relation of the
sovereign and subject is changed; but they who have
their shop full of false weights and measures, and
who imagine that the adding or taking away the
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 271
name of Protestant or Papist, Guelph or Ghibelline,
alters all the principles of equity, policy, and prudence, leave us no common data upon which we can
reason. I therefore pass by all this, which on you
will make no impression, to come to what seems to
be a serious consideration in your mind: I mean the
dread you express of " reviewing, for the purpose of
altering, the principles of the Revolution. " This is an
interesting topic, on which I will, as fully as your
leisure and mine permits, lay before you the ideas
I have formed.
First, I cannot possibly confound in my mind all
the things which were done at the Revolution with
the principles of the Revolution. As in most great
changes, many things were done from the necessities
of the time, well or ill understood, from passion or
from vengeance, which were not only not perfectly
agreeable to its principles, but in the most direct contradiction to them. I shall not think that the deprivation of some millions of people of all the rights of citizens, and all interest in the Constitution, in and to
which they were born, was a thing conformable to the
declared principles of the Revolution. This I am sure
is true relatively to England (where the operation of
these anti-principles comparatively were of little extent); and some of our late laws, in repealing acts
made immediately after the Revolution, admit that
some things then done were not done in the true
spirit of the Revolution. But the Revolution operated differently in England and Irelanld, in many,
and these essential particulars. . Supposing the principles to have been altogether the same in both kingdoms, by the application of those principles to very different objects the whole spirit of the system was
? ? ? ? 272 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
changed, not to say reversed. Ini England it was the
struggle of the great body of the people for the establishment of their liberties, against the efforts of a very
small faction, who would have oppressed them. In
Ireland it was the establishment of the power of the
smaller number, at the expense of the civil liberties
and properties of the. far greater part, and at the expense of the political liberties of the whole. It was,
to say the truth, not a revolution, but a conquest:
which is not to say a great deal in its favor. To insist on everything done in Ireland at the Revolution
would be to insist on the severe and jealous policy of
a conqueror, in the crude settlement of his new acquisition, as a permanent rule for its fiuture government.
This no power, in no country that ever I heard of,
has done or professed to do, - except in Ireland;
where it is done, and possibly by some people will
be professed. Time has, by degrees, in all other
places and periods, blended and coalited the conquered with the conquerors. So, after some time,
and after one of the most rigid conquests that we
read of in history, the Normans softened into the English. I wish you to turn your recollection to the
fine speech of Cerealis to the Gauls, made to dissuade
them from revolt. Speaking of the Romans, - N' os
quamvis toties lacessiti, jure victoriae id solum vobis
addidimus, quo pacem tueremur: nam neque quies
gentium sine armis, neque arma sine stipendiis, neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queant. Cwtera
in communi sita sunt: ipsi plerumque nostris exercitibus prcesidetis: ipsi has aliasque provincias regitis: nil separatum clausumve. Proinde pacem et urbem, quam victores victique eodem jure obtinemus,
amate, colite. " You will consider whether the ar
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISEE. 273
guments used by that Roman to these Gauls would
apply to the case in Ireland, - and whether you could
use so plausible a preamble to any severe warning
you might think it proper to hold out to those who
should resort to sedition, instead of supplication, to
obtain any object that they may pursue with the governing power.
For a much longer period than that which had sufficed to blend the Romans with the nation to which of all others they were the most adverse, the Protestants
settled in Ireland considered themselves in no other
light than that of a sort of a colonial garrison, to.
keep the natives in subjection to the other state of
Great Britain. The whole spirit of the Revolution!
in Ireland was that of not the mildest conqueror.
In truth, the spirit of those proceedings did not commence at that era, nor was religion of any kind their primary object. What was done was not in the spirit
of a contest between two religious factions, but between two adverse nations. The statutes of Kilkenny show that the spirit of the Popery laws, and some
even of their actual provisions, as applied between
Englishry and Irishry, had existed in that harassed
country before the words Protestant and Papist were
heard of in the world. If we read Baron Finglas,
Spenser, and Sir John Davies, we cannot miss the
true genius and policy of the English government
there before the Revolution, as well as during the
whole reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir John Davies
boasts of the benefits received by the natives, by extending to them the English law, and turning the whole kingdom into shire ground. But the appearance of things alone was changed. The original scheme was never deviated from for a single hour.
VOL. IV. 18
? ? ? ? 274 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
Unheard-of confiscations were made in the northern
parts, upon grounds of plots and conspiracies, never
proved upon their supposed authors. The war of
chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile
statutes; and a regular series of operations was carried' on, particularly from Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice, and by special commissions
and inquisitions,- first under pretence of tenures,
and then of titles in the crown, for the purpose of the
total extirpation of the interest of the natives in their
own soil, -- until this species of subtle ravage, being
carried to the last excess of oppression and insolence
under Lord Strafford, it kindled the flames of that
rebellion which broke out in 1641. By the issue of
that war, by the turn which the Earl of Clarendon
gave to things at the Restoration, and by the total
reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the
ruin of the native Irish, and, in a great measure, too,
of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as anything in human affairs
can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled
code of oppression, which were made after the last
event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred
and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the
victors delighted to trample upon and were not at
all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect of
their fears, but of their security. They who carried
on this system looked to the irresistible force of Great
Britain for their support in their acts of power.
They were quite certain that no complaints of the
natives would be heard on this side of the water with
any other. sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served only to augment their
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 275
torture. Machines which could answer their purposes so well must be of an excellent contrivance.
Indeed, in England, the double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (it would be hard to say
which singly was the most odious,) shut up the
hearts of every one against them. Whilst that temper prevailed, (and it prevailed in all its force to a
time within our memory,) every measure was pleasing
and popular just in proportion as it tended to harass
and ruin a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and man, and, indeed, as a race of bigoted savages who were a disgrace to human nature itself.
However, as the English in Ireland began to be
domiciliated, they began also to recollect that they
had a country. The English interest, at first by faint
and almost insensible degrees, but at length openly
and avowedly, became an independent Irish interest,
-- full as independent as it could ever have been if it
had continued in the. persons of the native Irish; and
it was maintained with more skill and more consistency than probably it would have been in theirs.
With their views, the Anglo-Irish changed their maxims: it was necessary to demonstrate to the whole
people that there was something, at least, of a common interest, combined with the independency, which
was to become the object of common exertions. The
mildness of government produced the first relaxation
towards the Irish; the necessities, and, in part, too,
the temper that predominated at this great change,
produced the second and the most important of these
relaxations. English government and Irish legislature felt jointly the propriety of this measure. The
Irish Parliament and nation became independent.
? ? ? ? 276 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGR. ISHE.
The true revolution to you, that which most intrinsically and substantially resembled the English
Revolution of 1688, was the Irish Revolution of
1782. The Irish Parliament of 1782 bore little resemblance to that which sat in that kingdom after
the period of the first of these revolutions. It bore
a much nearer resemblance to that which sat under
King James. The change of the Parliament in 1782
from the character of the Parliament which, as a token of its indignation, had burned all the journals
indiscriminately of the former Parliament in the
Council-Chamber, was very visible. The address of
King William's Parliament, the Parliament which assembled after the Revolution, amongst other causes
of complaint (many of them sufficiently just) complains of the repeal by their predecessors of Poyllings's law, - no absolute idol with the Parliament of 1782.
Great Britain, finding the Anglo-Irish highly animated with a spirit which had. indeed shown itself
before, though with little energy and many interruptions, and therefore suffered a multitude of uniform precedents to be established against it, acted, in my opinion, with the greatest temperance and
wisdom. She saw that the disposition of the leading part of the nation would not permit them to act
any longer the part of a garrison. She saw that true
policy did not require that they ever should have appeared in that character; or if it had done so formerly, the reasons had now ceased to operate. She saw that the Irish of her race were resolved to build
their Constitution and their politics upon another
bottom. With those things under her view, she instantly complied with the whole of your demands,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 277
without any reservation whatsoever. She surrendered that boundless superiority, for the preservation of which, and the acquisition, she had supported the English colonies in Ireland for so long a time,
and at so vast an expense (according to the standard
of those ages) of her blood and treasure.
When we bring before us the matter wlich history
affords for our selection, it is not improper to examine the spirit of the several precedents which are
candidates for our choice. Might it not be as well
for your statesmen, on the other side of the water,
to take an example from this latter and surely more
conciliatory revolution, as a pattern for your collduct towards your own fellow-citizens, than from that
of 1688, when a paramount sovereignty over both you
*and them was more loftily claimed and more sternly
exerted than at any former or at any subsequent period? Great Britain in 1782 rose above the vulgar
ideas of policy, the ordinary jealousies of state, and
all the sentiments of national pride and national almbition. If she had been more disposed (than, I thank
God for it, she was) to listen to the suggestions of
passion than to the dictates of prudence, she might
have urged the principles, the maxims, the policy,
the practice of the Revolution, against the demands
of the leading description in Ireland, with full as
much plausibility and full as good a grace as any
amongst them'can possibly do against the supplications of so vast and extensive a description of their
own people.
A good deal, too, if the spirit of domination and
exclusion had prevailed in England, might have been
excepted against some of the means then employed
in Ireland, whilst her claims were in agitation. They
? ? ? ? 278 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
were at least as much out of ordinary course as
those which are now objected against admitting your
people to any of the benefits of an English Constitution. Most certainly, neither with you nor here
was any one ignorant of what was at that time said,
written, and done. But on all sides we separated the
means from the end: and we separated the cause of
the moderate and rational from the ill-intentioned
and seditious, which on such occasions are so frequently apt to march together. At that time, on
your part, you were not afraid to review what was
done at the Revolution of 1688, and what had been
continued during the subsequent flourishing period
of the British empire. The change then made was
a great and fundamental alteration. In tlie execution, it was an operose business on both sides of the
water. It required the repeal of several laws, the
modification of many, and a new course to be given
to an infinite number of legislative, judicial, and official practices and usages in both kingdoms. This
did not frighten any of us. You are now asked to
give, in some moderate measure, to your fellow-citizens, what Great Britain gave to you without any
measure at all. Yet, notwithstanding all the difficulties at the time, and the apprehensions which some
very well-meaning people entertained, through the
admirable temper in which this revolution (or restoration in the nature of a revolution) was conducted
in both kingdoms, it has hitherto produced no inconvenlience to either; and I trust, with the continuance
of the same temper, that it never will. I think that
this small, inconsiderable change, (relative to an exclusive statute not made at the Revolution,) for restoring the people to the benefits from which the
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 279
green soreness of a civil war had not excluded them,
will be productive of no sort of mischief whatsoever.
Compare what was done in 1782 with what is wished
in 1792; consider the spirit of what has been done
at the several periods of reformation; and weigh maturely whether it be exactly true that conciliatory concessions are of good policy only in discussions between nations, but that among descriptions in the same nation they must always be irrational and dallgerous. What have you suffered in your peace, your prosperity, or, in what ought ever to be dear to a
nation, your glory, by the last act by which you
took the property of that people under the protection of the laws? What reasons have you to dread
the consequences of admitting the people possessing
that property to some share in the protection of the
Constitution?
I do not mean to trouble you with anything to remove the objections, I will not call them arguments, against this measure, taken from a ferocious hatred
to all that numerous description of Christians. It
would be to pay a poor compliment to your understanding or your heart. Neither your religion nor
your politics consist 1" in odd, perverse antipathies. "
You are not resolved to persevere in proscribing from
the Constitution so many millions of your countrymen, because, in contradiction to experience and to common sense, you think proper to imagine that
their principles are subversive of common human
society. To that I shall only say, that whoever
has a temper which can be gratified by indulging
himself in these good-natured fancies ought to do a
great deal more. For an exclusion from the privileges of British subjects is not a cure for so terrible
? ? ? ? 280 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.
a distemper of the human mind as they are pleased
to suppose in their countrymen. I rather conceive
a participation in those privileges to be itself a rem
edy for some mental disorders.
As little shall I detain you with matters that can
as little obtain admission into a mind like yours:
such as the fear, or pretence of fear, that, in spite
of your own power and the trifling power of Great
Britain, you may be conquered by the Pope; or that
this commodious bugbear (who is of infinitely more
use to those who pretend to fear than to those who
love him) will absolve his Majesty's subjects fromi
their allegiance, and send over the Cardinal of York
to rule you as his viceroy; or that, by the plenitude
of his power, h'e will take that fierce tyrant, the king
of the French, out of his jail, and arm that nation
(which on all occasions treats his Holiness so very
politely) with his bulls and pardons, to invade poor
old Ireland, to reduce you to Popery and slavery, and
to force the free-born, naked feet of your people into the wooden shoes of that arbitrary monarch. I do not believe that discourses of this kind are held,
or that anything like them will be held, by any who
walk about without a keeper. Yet I confess, that,
on occasions of this nature, I am the most afraid of
the weakest reasonings, because they discover the
strongest passions. These things will never be brought
out in definite propositions. They would not prevent
pity towards any persons; they would only cause it
for those who were capable of talking in such a
strain. But I know, and am sure, that such ideas
as no man will distinctly produce to another, or hardly venture to bring in any plain shape to his owll mind, he will utter in obscure, ill-explained doubts,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE. 281
jealousies, surmises, fears, and apprehensions, and
that in such a fog they will appear to have a good
deal of size, and will make an impression, when, if
they were clearly brought forth and defined, they
would meet with nothing but scorn and derision.
There is another way of taking an objection to this
concession, which I admit to be something more plausible, and worthy of a more attentive examination. It is, that this numerous class of people is mutinous,
disorderly, prone to sedition, and easy to be wrought
upon by the insidious arts of wicked and designing
men; that, conscious of this, the sober, rational, and
wealthy part of that body, who are totally of another
character, do by no means desire any participation
for themselves, or for any one else of their description, in the franchises of the British Constitution.
I have great doubt of the exactness of any part
of this observation. But let us admit that the body
of the Catholics are prone to sedition, (of which, as I
have said, I entertain much doubt,) is it possible that
any fair observer or fair reasoner can think of confining this description to them only? I believe it to
be possible for men to be mutinous and seditious who
feel no grievance, but I believe no man will assert seriously, that, when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them
with something substantial to complain of.
You separate, very properly, the sober, rational,
and substantial part of their description from the
rest.