If the principle of the English and Scottish resistance at the Revolution is to be justified, (as sure I am it is,) the submission of Ireland must be
somewhat
extenuated.
Edmund Burke
?
?
398 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ.
,
tions of Popish and Protestant opinions or interest are
the things by which men are at present menaced with
crusades by foreign invasion, or with seditions which
shake the foundations of the state at home. It is
long since all this combination of things has vanished
from the view of intelligent observers. The existence
of quite another system of opinions and interests is
now plain to the grossest sense. Are these the questions that raise a flame in the minds of men at this
day? If ever the Church and the Constitution of
England should fall in these islands, (and they will
fall together,) it is not Presbyterian discipline nor
Popish hierarchy that will rise upon their ruins. It
will not be the Church of Rome nor the Church of
Scotland, not the Church of Luther nor the Church
of Calvin. On the contrary, all these churches are
menaced, and menaced alike. It is the new fanatical religion, now in the heat of its first ferment, of
the Rigllts of Man, which rejects all establishments,
all discipline, all ecclesiastical, and in truth all civil
order, which will triumph, and which will lay prostrate your Church, which will destroy your distinctions, and which will put all your properties to auction, and disperse you over the earth. If the present establishment should fall, it is this religion which will
triumph in Ireland and in England, as it has triumphed in France. This religion, which laughs at
creeds and dogmas and confessions of faith, may be
fomented equally amongst all descriptions and all
sects, -- amongst nominal Catholics, and amongst
nominal Churchmen, and amongst those Dissenters
who know little and care less about a presbytery, or
any of its discipline, or any of its doctrine. Again, t
this new, this growing, this exterminatory system, all
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 399 these churches have a common concern to defend themselves. How the enthusiasts of this rising sect rejoice to see you of the old churches play their game, and stir and rake the cinders of animosities sunk in their ashes, in order to keep up the execution of
their plan for your common ruin!
I suppress all that is in my mind about the blindness of those of our clergy who will shut their eyes
to a thing which glares in such manifest day. If
some wretches amongst an indigent and disorderly
part of the populace raise a riot about tithes, there
are of these gentlemen ready to cry out that this is
an overt act of a treasonable conspiracy. Here the
bulls, and the pardons, and the crusade, and the Pope,
and the thunders of the Vatican are everywhere at
work. There is a plot to bring in a foreign power to
destroy the Church. Alas! it is not about popes,
but about potatoes, that the minds of this unhappy
people are agitated. It is not from the spirit of zeal,
but the spirit of whiskey, that these wretches act. Is
it, then, not conceived possible that a poor clown can
be unwilling, after paying three pounds rent to a gentleman in a brown coat, to pay fourteen shillings to one in a black coat, for his acre of potatoes, and tumultuously to desire some modification of the charge, without being supposed to have no other motive than
a frantic zeal for being thus double-taxed to another
set of landholders and another set of priests? Have
men no self-interest, no avarice, no repugnance to
public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive
minds, no undisciplined habits? Is there nothing
in the whole mob of irregular passions, which might
precipitate some of the common people, in some
places, to quarrel with a legal, because they feel it
? ? ? ? 400 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
to be a burdensome imposition? According to these
gentlemenf, no offence can be committed by Papists
but from zeal to their religion. To make room for
the vices of Papists, they clear the house of all the
vices of men. - Some of the common people (not one,
however, in ten thousand) commit disorders. Well!
punish them as you do, and as you ought to punish
them, for their violence against the just property of
each individual clergyman, as each individual suffers.
Support the injured rector, or the injured impropriator, in the enjoyment of the estate of which (whether
on the best plan or not) the laws have put him in
possession. Let the crime and the punishment stand
upon their own bottom. But now we ought all of
us, clergymen most particularly, to avoid assigning
another cause of quarrel, in order to infuse a new
source of bitterness into a dispute which personal
feelings on both sides will of themselves make bitter
enough, and thereby involve in it by religious descriptions men who have individually no share whatsoever in those irregular acts. Let us not make the malignant fictions of our own imaginations, heated
with factious controversies, reasons for keeping men
that are neither guilty nor justly suspected of crime
in a servitude equally dishonorable and unsafe to religion and to the state. When men are constantly
accused, but know themselves not to be guilty, they
must naturally abhor their accusers. There is no
character, when malignantly taken up and deliberately pursued, which more naturally excites indignation and abhorrence in mankind, especially in that part of mankind which suffers from it.
I do not pretend to take pride in an extravagant
attachment to any sect. Some gentlemen in Ireland
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENC i' IN IRELAND. 401
affect that sort of glory. It is to their taste. Their
piety, I take it for granted, justifies the ferv6r of their
zeal, and may palliate the excess of it. Being myself no more than a common layman, commonly informed ill controversies, leading only a very common life, and having only a common citizen's interest in
the Church or in the State, yet to you I will say, in
justice to my owll sentiments, that not one of those
zealots for a Protestant interest wishes more sinlcerely
than I do, perhaps not half so sincerely, for the support of the Established Church in both these kingdoms. It is a great link towards holding fast the connection of religion with the State, and for keeping these two islands, in their present critical independence of constitution, in a close connection of opinion and affection. I wish it well, as the religion
of the greater number of the primary land-proprietors of the kingdom, with whom all establishments
of Church and State, for strong political reasons,
ought in my opinion to be firmly connected. I
wish it well, because it is more closely combined
than any other of the church systems with the crown,
which is the stay of the mixed Constitution, - because it is, as things now stand, the sole connecting
political principle between the constitutions of the
two independent kingdoms. I have another and
infinitely a stronger reason for wishing it well: it
is, that in the present time I consider it as one of
the main pillars of the Christian religion itself. Thle
body and substance of every religion I regard much
more than any of the forms and dogmas of the particular sects. Its fall would leave a great void, which
nothing else, of which I can form any distinct idea,
migllt fill. I respect the Catholic hierarchy and the
VOL. VI. 26
? ? ? ? 402 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
Presbyterian republic; but I know that the hope or
the fear of establislling either of them is, in these
kingdoms, equally climerical, even if I preferred one
or the other of them to the Establishment, which certainly I do not.
These are some of my reasons for wishing the sup
port of the Church of Ireland as by law established,
These reasons are founded as well on the absolute
as on the relative situation of that kingdom. But
is it because I love the Church, and the King, and
the privileges of Parliamlent, that I am to be ready for
aly violence, or any injiustice, or any absurdity, in the
means of supporting any of these powers, or all of
them together? Instead of prating about Protestant
ascendencies, Protestanlt Parliaments ought, in my
opinion, to think at last of becoming patriot Parliaments.
The legislature of Ireland, like all legislatures,
ougllt to frame its laws to suit the people and the
circumstances of the counltry, and not any longer
to make it their whole business to force the nature,
the temper, and the inveterate habits of a nation to
a conformity to speculative systems concerning any
kind of laws. Ireland has an established government, and a religion legally established, which are
to be preserved. It has a people who tre to be pre.
served too, and to be led by reason, principle, senti
ment, and interest to acquiesce in that government.
Ireland is a country under peculiar circumstances.
The people of Ireland are a very mixed people; and
the quantities of the several ingredients in the mix
ture are very much disproportioned to each other.
Are we to govern this mixed body as if it were composed of the most simple elements, comprehending
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 403
the whole in one system of benevolent legislation?
or are we not rather to provide for the several parts
according to the various and diversified necessities
of the heterogeneous nature of the mass? Would
not common reason and common honesty dictate to
us the policy of regulating the people, in the several
descriptions of which they are composed, according
to the natural ranks and classes of an orderly civil
society, under a common protecting sovereign, and
under a form of constitution favorable at once to authority and to freedom, - such as the British Conlstitution boasts to be, and such as it is to those who enjoy it?
You have an ecclesiastical establishment, which,
though the religion of the prince, and of most of
the first class of landed proprietors, is not the religion of the major part of the inhabitants, and which
consequently does not answer to them any one purpose of a religious establishment. This is a state of
things which no man in his senses can call perfectly
happy. But it is the state of Ireland. Two hundred
years of experiment show it to be unalterable. Many
a fierce struggle has passed between the parties. The
result is, you cannot make the people Protestants, and
they cannot shake off a Protestant government. This
is what experience teaches, and what all men of sense
of all descriptions know. To-day the question is
this: Are we to make the best of this situation,
which we cannot alter? The question is: Shall
the condition of the body of the people be alleviated in other things, on account of their necessary
suffering from their being subject to the burdens of
two religious establishments, from one of which they
do not partake the least, living or dying, either of
? ? ? ? 404 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
instruction or of consolation, - or shall it be aggravated, by stripping the people thus loaded of everything which might support and indemnify them in this state, so as to leave them naked of every sort of
right and of every name of franchise, to outlaw them
from the Constitution, and to cut off (perhaps) three
millions of plebeian subjects, without reference to
property, or any other qualification, from all connection with the popular representation of the kingdom?
As to religion, it has nothing at all to do with the
proceeding. Liberty is not sacrificed to a zeal for religion, but a zeal for religion is pretended and assumed to destroy liberty. The Catholic religion is completely free. It has no establishment, - but it
is recognized, permitted, and, in a degree, protected
by the laws. If a man is satisfied to be a slave, lihe
may be a Papist with perfect impunity. He may say
mass, or hear it, as he pleases; but he must consider
himself as an outlaw from the British Constitution.
If the constitutional liberty of the subject were not
the thing aimed at, the direct reverse course would
be taken. The franchise would have been permitted,
and the mass exterminated. But the conscience of
a man left, and a tenderness for it hypocritically pretended, is to make it a trap to catch his liberty.
So much is this the design, that the violent partisans of this scheme fairly take up all the maxims and
arguments, as well as the practices, by which tyranny
has fortified itself at all times. Trusting wholly in
their strength and power,' (and upon this they reckon, as always ready to strike wherever they wish to
direct the storm,) they abandon all pretext of the
general good of the community. They say, that, if
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 405
the people, under any given modification, obtain the
smallest portion or particle of constitutional freedom,
it will be impossible for them to hold their property.
They tell us that they act only on the defensive.
They inform the public of Europe that their estates
are made up of forfeitures and confiscations from the
natives; that, if the body of people obtain votes, any
number of votes, however small, it will be a step to
the choice of members of their own religion; that the
House of Commons, in spite of the influence of nineteen parts in twenty of the landed interest now in
their hands, will be composed in the whole, or in far
the major part, of Papists; that this Popish House of
Commons will instantly pass a law to confiscate all
their estates, which it will not be in their power to
save even by entering into that Popish party themselves, because there are prior claimants to be satisfied; that, as to the House of Lords, though neither Papists nor Protestants have a share ill electing them,
the body of the peerage will be so obliging and disinterested as to fall in with this exterminatory scheme,
which is to forfeit all their estates, the largest part of
the kingdom; and, to crown all, that his Majesty will
give his cheerful assent to this causeless act of attainder of his innocent and faithful Protestant subjects;
that they will be or are to be left, without house
or land, to the dreadful resource of living by their
wits, out of which they are already frightened by the
apprehension of this spoliation with which they are
threatened; that, therefore, they cannot so much as
listen to any arguments drawn from equity or from
national or constitutional policy: the sword is at their
throats; beggary and famine at their door. See
what it is to have a good look-out, and to see danger,
at the end of a sufficiently long perspective!
? ? ? ? 406 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
This is, indeed, to speak plain, though to speak
nothing very new. The same thing has been said in
all times and in all languages. The language of tyranny has been invariable: " The general good is inconsistent with my personal safety. " Justice and liberty seem so alarming to these gentlemen, that they are
not ashamed even to slander their own titles, to calufminiate and call in doubt their right to their own estates, and to consider themselves as novel disseizors, usurpers, and intruders, rather than lose a pretext for
becoming oppressors of their fellow-citizens, whom
they (not I) choose to describe themselves as having
robbed.
Instead of putting themselves in this odious point
of light, one would think they would wish to let Time
draw his oblivious veil over the unpleasant modes by
which lordships and demesnes have been acquired in
theirs, and almost in all other countries upon earth.
It mighlt be imagined, that, when the sufferer (if a
sufferer exists) had forgot the wrong, they would be
pleased to forget it too, - that they would permit the
sacred name of possession to stand in the place of the
melancholy and unpleasant title of grantees of confiscation, which, though firm and valid in law, surely
merits the name that a great Roman jurist gave to a
title at least as valid in his nation as confiscation
would be either in his or in ours:. Tristis et luctuosa
successio.
Such is the situation of every man who comes inl
upon the ruin of another; his succeeding, under this
circumstance, is tristis et luctuosa successio. If it had
been the fate of any gentleman to profit by the confiscation of his neighbor, one would think he would be
more disposed to give him a valuable interest under
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 407
him in his land, or to allow him a pension, as I understand one worthy person has done, withlout fear or
apprehension that his benevolence to a ruined family
would be construed into a recognition of the forfeited
title. The public of England, the other day, acted
in thllis manner towards Lord Newburgh, a Catholic.
Tllough the estate had been vested by law in the
greatest of the public charities, they have given himn
a pension from his confiscation. They have gone
further in other cases. 011 tlle last rebellion, in
1745, in Scotland, several forfeitures were incurred.
They had leien disposed of by Parliament to certainl lauidable uses. Parliament reversed the method
which they had adopted in Lord Newburgh's case, and
in my opinion did better: tlley gave the forfeited estates to the successors of the forfeitilg proprietors,
chllargeable in part with the uses. Is this, or anything like this, asked in favor of any human creature
in Ireland? It is bounty, it is charity, - wise bounty, and politic charity; but no mall can claim it as a
right. Here no such thing is claimed as right, or
begged as charity. The demand hlas all object as
distanlt from all considerations of this sort as anly two
extremes can be. Tlle people desire the privileges inseparably annexed, since Magna Charta, to the fieehold which they have by descent or obtain as the fruits of tleir industry. Tlhey call for no manl's estate;
they desire not to be dispossessed of their own.
But this melancholy and invidious title is a favorite
(and, like favorites, always of the least merit) with
those who possess every other title upon earth along
with it. For this purpose they revive the bitter memory of every dissension which has torn to pieces their
miserable country for ages. After what has passed
? ? ? ? 408 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
in 1782, one would not think that decorum, to say
nothing of policy, would permit them to call up, by
magic charms, the grounds, reasons, and principles
of those terrible confiscatory and exterminatory periods. They would not set men upon calling from
the quiet sleep of death any Samuel, to ask him by
what act of arbitrary monarchs, by what inquisitions
of corrupted tribunals and tortured jurors, by what
fictitious tenures invented to dispossess whole unoffending tribes and their chieftains. They would not conjure up the ghosts from the ruins of castles and
churches, to tell for what attempt to struggle for the
independence of an Irish legislature, and to raise armies of volunteers without regular commissions from the crown in support of that independence, the estates of the old Irish nobility and gentry had been confiscated. They would not wantonly call on those
phantoms to tell by what English acts of Parliament,
forced upon two reluctant kings, the lands of their
country were put up to a mean and scandalous auction in every goldsmith's shop in London, or chopped to pieces and cut into rations, to pay the mercenary
soldiery of a regicide usurper. They would not be
so fond of titles under Cromwell, who, if he avenged
an Irish rebellion against the sovereign authority
of the Parliament of England, had himself rebelled
against the very Parliament whose sovereignty he
asserted, full as much as the Irish nation, which he
was sent to subdue and confiscate, could rebel against
that Parliament, or could rebel against the king,
against whom both he and the Parliament which he
served, and which he betrayed, had both of them rebelled.
The gentlemen who hold the language of the day
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 409
know perfectly well that the Irish in 1641 pretended,
at least, that they did not rise against the kinlg: nor
in fact did they, whatever constructions law might
put upon their act. But full surely they rebelled
against the authority of the Parliament of England,
and they openly professed so to do. Admitting (I
have now no time to discuss the matter) the enormous and unpardonable magnitude of this their crime,
they rued it in their persons, and in those of their
children and their grandchildren, even to the fifth
and sixth generations. Admitting, then, the enormity of this unnatural rebellion in favor of the independence of Ireland, will it follow that it must be
avenged forever? Will it follow that it must be
avenged on thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of those whom they can never trace, by the labors of the most subtle metaphysician of the traduction of crimes, or the most inquisitive genealogist of proscription, to the descendant of any one concerned
in that nefarious Irish rebellion against the Parliament of England?
If, however, you could find out these pedigrees of
guilt, I do not think the difference would be essential.
History records many things which ought to make us
hate evil actions; but neither history, nor morals,
nor policy can teach us to punish innocent men on
that account. What lesson does the iniquity of prevalent factions read to us? It ought to lesson us
into an abhorrence of the abuse of our own power
in our own day, when we hate its excesses so much
in other persons and in other times. To that school
true statesmen ought to be satisfied to leave mankind.
They ought not to call from the dead all the discussions and litigations which formerly inflamed the
? ? ? ? 410 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
furious factions which had torn their country to
pieces; they ought not to rake into the hideous and
abominable things which were done inl the turbulent
fury of an injured, robbed, and persecuted people,
and which were afterwards cruelly revenged in the
execution, and as outrageously and shamefully exaggerated in the representation, in order, an hllundred
and fifty years after, to find some color for justifying
them in the eternal proscription and civil excommunication of a whole people.
Let us come to a later period of those confiscations
with the memory of which the gentlemen who triumph in the acts of 1782 are so much delighted. The
Irish again rebelled against the English Parliament
in 1688, and the English Parliament again put up to
sale the greatest part of their estates. I do not presumne to defend the Irish for this rebellion, nor to
blame the English Parliament for this confiscation.
The Irish, it is true, did not revolt from King James's
power. He threw himself upon their fidelity, and
they supported him to the best of their feeble power.
Be the crime of that obstinate adherence to an abdicated sovereign, against a prince whom tle Parliaments of Ireland and Scotland had recognized, what it may, I do not mean to justify this rebellion more
than the former. It might, however, admit some palliation il tllem. In generous minds some small degree
of compassion might be excited for an error, where
they were misled, as Cicero says to a conqueror,
quadam slpeie et sinilitudine pacis, not without a mistaken appearance of duty, and for which the guilty
have suffered, by exile abroad and slavery at llome,
to the extent of their folly or their offence. Tl4e best
calculators compute that Ireland lost two hundred
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 411 thousand of her inhabitants in that struggle.
If the principle of the English and Scottish resistance at the Revolution is to be justified, (as sure I am it is,) the submission of Ireland must be somewhat extenuated. For, if the Irish resisted King William, they resisted him on the very same principle that the English and Scotch resisted King James. The Irish Catholics
must have been the very worst and the most truly unnatural of rebels, if they had not supported a prince whom they had seen attacked, not for any designs
against their religion or their liberties, but for an
extreme partiality for their sect, and who, far from
trespassing on their liberties and properties, secured both them and the independence of their country in much the same manner that we have seen the same things done at the period of 1782, -- I trust the last revolution in Ireland.
That the Irish Parliarment of King James did in
some particulars, though feebly, imitate the rigor
which had been used towards the Irish, is true
enough. Blamable enough they were for what tliey
had done, though under the greatest possible provocation. I shall never praise confiscations or counterconfiscations as long as I live. When they happen by necessity, I shall think the necessity lamentable
and odious: I shall think that anything done under
it ought not to pass into precedent, or to be adopted
by choice, or to produce any of those shocking retaliations which never suffer dissensions to subside. Least of all would I fix the transitory spirit of civil
fury by perpetuating and methodizillg it in tyrannic
government. If it were permitted to argue with
power, might one not ask these gentlemen whether
it would not be more natural, instead of wantonly
? ? ? ? 412 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ.
mooting these questions concerning their property,
as if it were an exercise in law, to found it on the
solid rock of prescription,- the soundest, the most
general, and the most recognized title between man
and man that is known in municipal or in public
jurisprudence? - a title in which not arbitrary institutions, but the eternal order of things, gives judgment; a title which is not the creature, but the master, of positive law; a title which, though not
fixed in its term, is rooted in its principle in the
law of Nature itself, and is indeed the original
ground of all known property: for all property in
soil will always be traced back to that source, and
will rest there. The miserable natives of Ireland,
who ninety-nine in an hundred are tormented with
quite other cares, and are bowed down to labor for
the bread of the hour, are not, as gentlemen pretend, plodding with antiquaries for titles of centuries
ago to the estates of the great lords and squires for
whom they labor. But if they were thinking of the
titles which gentlemen labor to beat into their heads,
where can they bottom their own claims, but in a
presumption and a proof that these lands had at
some time been possessed by their ancestors? These
gentlemen (for they have lawyers amongst them)
know as well as I that in England we have had always a prescription or limitation, as all nations have,
against each other. The crown was excepted; but
that exception is destroyed, and we have lately established a sixty years' possession as against the
crown. All titles terminate in prescription, - in
which (differently from Time in the fabulous instances) the son devours the father, and the last
prescription eats up all the former.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
ON
THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 1797.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
DEAR SIR,- In the reduced state of body and
in the dejected state of mind in which I filnd
myself at this very advanced period of my life, it is
a great consolation to me to know that a cause I ever
have had so very near my heart is taken up by a
man of your activity and talents.
It is very true that your late friend, my ever dear
and honored son, was in the highest degree solicitous
about the final event of a business which he also had
pursued for a long time with infinite zeal, and no
small degree of success. It was not above half an
hour before he left me forever that he spoke with
considerable earnestness on this very subject. If I
had needed any incentives to do my best for freeing
the body of my country from the grievances under
which they labor, this alone would certainly call forth
all my endeavors.
Tlhe person who succeeded to the government of
Ireland about the time of that afflicting event had
been all along of my sentiments and yours upon this
subject; and far from needing to be stimulated by
me, that incomparable person, and those in whom he
strictly confided, even went before me in their resolution to pursue the great end of government, the satisfaction and concord of the people with whose welfare they were charged. I cannot bear to think on the
causes by which this great plan of policy, so man
? ? ? ? 416 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
ifestly beneficial to both kingdoms, has been defeated.
Your mistake with regard to me lies in supposing
that I did not, when his removal was in agitation,
strongly and personally represent to several of his
Majesty's ministers, to whom I could have the most
ready access, the true state of Ireland, and the mischiefs which sooner or later must arise from subjecting the mass of the people to the capricious and interested domination of all exceeding small faction and its dependencies.
That representation was made the last time, or
very nearly the last time, that I have ever had the
honor of seeing those ministers. I am so far from
having any credit with them, on this, or any other
public matters, that I have reason to be certain, if it
were known that any person in office in Ireland, from
the hilghest to the lowest, were influenced by my opinions, and disposed to act upon them, such an one
would be instantly turned out of his employment.
You have formed, to my person a flattering, yet in
truth a very erroneous opinion, of my power with
those who direct the public measures. I never have
been directly or indirectly consulted about anything
that is done. The judgment of the eminent and able
persons who conduct public affairs is undoubtedly
superior to mine; but self-partiality induces almost
every man to defer something to his own. Nothing
is more notorious than that I have the misfortune of
thinking that no one capital measure relative to political arrangements, and still less that a new military
plan for the defence of either kingdom in this arduous
war, has been taken upon any other principle than
such as must conduct us to inevitable ruin.
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 417
In the state of my mind, so discordant with the
tone of ministers, and still more discordant with the
toile of opposition, you may judge what degree of
weight I am likely to have with either of the parties
who divide this kingdom, - even though I were endowed with strength of body, or were possessed of
any active situation in the government, which might
give success to my endeavors. But the fact is, since
the day of my unspeakable calamity, except in the attentions of a very few old and compassionate friends,
I am totally out of all social intercourse. My health
has gone down very rapidly; and I have been brought
hither with very faint hopes of life, and enfeebled to
such a degree as those who had known me some time
ago could scarcely think credible. Since I came
hither, my sufferings have been greatly aggravated,
and my little strength still further reduced; so that,
though I am told the symptoms of my disorder begin
to carry a more favorable aspect, I pass the far larger part of the twenty-four hours, indeed almost the
whole, either in my bed or lying upon the couch
from which I dictate this. Had you been apprised
of this circumstance, you could not have expected
anything, as you seem to do, from my active exertions. I could do nothing, if I was still stronger, not
even si meus adforet Hector.
There is no hope for the body of the people of Ireland, as long as those who are in power with you
shall make it the great object of their policy to propagate an opinion on this side of the water that the
mass of their countrymen are not. to be trusted by
their government, and that the only hold which England has upon Ireland consists in preserving a certain very small number of gentlemen in filll possesVOL. VI. 27
? ? ? ? 418 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
sion of a monopoly of that kingdom. This system
has disgusted many others besides Catholics and Dissenters.
As to those who on your side are in the opposition
to government, they are composed of persons several of whom I love and revere. They have been irritated by a treatment too much for the ordinary patience of mankind to bear into the adoption of schemes which, however argumentatively specious, would go
practically to the inevitable ruin of the kingdom.
The opposition always connects the emancipation of
the Catholics with these schemes of reformation: indeed, it makes the former only a member of the latter project. The gentlemen who enforce that opposition are, in my opinion, playing the game of their adversaries with all their might; and there is no
third party in Ireland (nor in England neither) to
separate things that are in themselves so distinct, - I
mean the admitting people to the benefits of the Constitution, and a change in the form of the Constitution itself.
As every one knows that a great part of the constitution of the Irish House of Commons was formed
about the year 1614 expressly for bringing that
House into a state of dependence, and that the new
representative was at that time seated and installed
by force and violence, nothing can be more impolitic than for those who wish the House to stand on
its present basis (as, for one, I most sincerely do)
to make it appear to have kept too much the principle of its first institution, and to continue to be as
little a virtual as it is an actual representative of the
commons. It is the degeneracy of such an institution,
so vicious in its principle, that is to be wished for. If
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 419
men have the real benefit of a sympathetic representation, none but those who are heated and intoxicated
with theory will look for any other. This sort of representation, my dear Sir, must wholly depend, not
on the force with which it is upheld, but upon the
prudence of those who have influence upon it. Indeed, without some such prudence in the use of authority, I do not know, at least in the present time, how any power can long continue.
If it be true that. both parties are carrying things
to extremities in different ways, the object which you
and I have in common, that is to say, the union and
concord of our country on the basis of the actual representation, without risking those evils which any
change in the form of our legislature must inevitably
bring on, can never be obtained. On the part of the
Catholics (that is to say, of the body of the people of
the kingdom) it is a terrible alternative, either to
submit to the yoke of declared and insulting enemies,
or to seek a remedy in plunging themselves into the
horrors and crimes of that Jacobinisin which unfortunately is not disagreeable to the principles and inclinations of, I am afraid, the majority of what we call the Protestants of Ireland. The Protestant part of
that kingdom is represented by the government itself
to be, by whole counties, in nothing less than open
rebellion. I am sure that it is everywhere teeming
with dangerous conspiracy.
I believe it will be found, that, though the principles of the Catholics, and the incessant endeavors
of their clergy, have kept them from being generally infected with the systems of this time, yet, whenever their situati n brings them nearer into contact with the Jacobin Protestants, they are more or less
infected with their doctrines.
? ? ? ? 420 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
It is a matter for melancholy reflection, but I am
fully convinced, that many persons in Ireland would
be glad that the Catholics should become more and
more infected with the Jacobin madness, in order to
furnish new arguments for fortifying them in their
monopoly. On ally other ground it is impossible to
account for the late language of your men in power.
If statesmen, (let me suppose for argument,) upon
the most solid political principles, conceive themselves obliged to resist the wishes of the far more numerous, and, as things stand, not the worse part of the community, one would think they would naturally put their refusal as much as possible upon temporary grounds, and that they would act towards them in the most conciliatory manner, and would talk to
them in the most gentle and soothing language: for'
refusal, in itself, is not a very gracious thing; and,
unfortunately, men are very quickly irritated out
of their principles. Nothing is more discouraging to
the loyalty of any description of men than to represent to them that their humiliation and subjection
make a principal part in the fundamental and invariable policy which regards the conjunction of these
two kingdoms. This is not the way to give them a
warm interest in that conjunction.
My poor opinion is, that the closest connection between Great Britain and Ireland is essential to the
well-being, I had almost said, to the very being, of
the two kingdoms. For that purpose I humbly
conceive that the whole of the superior, and what I
should call imperial politics, ought to have its residence here; and that Ireland, locally, civilly, and
commercially independent, ought politically to look
up to Great Britainl in all matters of peace or of
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 421
war, -in all those points to be guided by her,and, in a word, with her to live and to die. At
bottom, Ireland has no other choice, --I mean, no
other rational choice.
I think, indeed, that Great Britain would be ruined
by the separation of Ireland; but as there are degrees
even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily onil Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the
most completely undone country in the world, - the
most wretched, the most distracted, and, in the end,
the most desolate part of the habitable globe. Little
do many people in Ireland consider how much of its
prosperity has been owing to, and still depends upon,
its intimate connection with this kingdom. But, more
sensible of this great truth than perhaps any other
man~, I have never conceived, or can conceive, that
the connection is strengthened by making the major
part of the inhabitants of your country believe that
their ease, and their satisfaction, and their equalization with tile rest of their fellow-subjects of Ireland
are things adverse to the principles of that connlection, - or that their subjection to a small monopolizing junto, composed of one of tile smallest of their own internal factions, is the very condition upon
which tlle harmony of the two kingdoms essentially
depends. I was sorry to hear that this principle, or
somnctlling not unlike it, was publicly and fully avowed
by persons of great rank and authority in tile House
of Lords ill Ireland.
As to a participation on the part of the Catholics
in the privileges and capacities whichl are withheld,
without meaning wholly to depreciate their importance, if I hiad the honor of being all Irish Catholic,
I should be comntent to expect satisfaction upoIl thlat
? ? ? ? 422 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
subject with patience, until the minds of my adversaries, few, but powerful, were come to a proper temper: because, if the Catholics did enjoy, without fraud, chicane, or partiality, some fair portion of
those advantages which the law, even as now the law
is, leaves open to them, and if the rod were not shaken over them at every turn, their present condition
would be tolerable; as compared with their former
condition, it would be happy. But the most favorable laws can do very little towards the happiness of
a people, when the disposition of the ruling power
is adverse to them. Men do not live upon blotted
paper. The favorable or the hostile mind of the
ruling power is of far more importance to mankind,
for good or evil, than the black-letter of any statute.
Late acts of Parliament, whilst they fixed at least a
temporary bar to the hopes and progress of the larger
description of the nation, opened to them certain subordinate objects of equality; but it is impossible that
the people should imagine that any fair measure of
advantage is intended to them, when they hear the
laws by which they were admitted to this limited
qualification publicly reprobated as excessive and inconsiderate. They must think that there is a hankering after the old penal and persecuting code. Their alarm must be great, when that declaration is made
by a person in very high and important office in the
House of Commons, and as the very first specimen
and auspice of a new government.
All this is very unfortunate. I have the honor of
an old acquaintance, and entertain, in common with
you, a very high esteem for the few English persons
who are concerned in the government of Ireland;
but I am not ignorant of the relation these transitory
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFATRS OF IRELAND. 423
ministers bear to the more settled Irish part of your
administration. It is a delicate topic, upon which I
wish to say but little, though my reflections upon it
are many and serious. There is a great cry against
English influence. I am quite sure that it is Irish
influence that dreads the English habits.
Great disorders have long prevailed in Ireland. It
is not long since that the Catholics were the suffering
party from those disorders. I am sure they were not
protected as the case required. Their sufferings became a matter of discussion in Parliament. It produced the most infuriated declamation against them that I have ever read. An inquiry was moved into
the facts. The declamation was at least tolerated, if
not approved. The inquiry was absolutely rejected.
In that case, what is left for those who are abandoned
by government, but to join with the persons who are
capable of injuring them or protecting them as they
oppose or concur in their designs? This will produce
a very fatal kind of union amongst the people; but
it is an union which an unequal administration of
justice tends necessarily to produce.
If anything could astonish one at this time, it is
the war that the rulers in Ireland think it proper to
carry on against the person whom they call the Pope,
and against all his adherents, whenever they think
they have the power of manifesting their hostility.
Without in the least derogating from the talents of
your theological politicians, or from the military abilities of your commanders (who act on the same principles) in Ireland, and without derogating from the zeal of either, it appears to me that the Protestant
Directory of Paris, as statesmen, and the Protestant
hero, Buonaparte, as a general, have done more to
? ? ? ? 424 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
destroy the said Pope and all his adherents, in all
their capacities, than the junto in Ireland have ever
been able to effect. You must submit your fasces to
theirs, and at best be contented to follow with songs
of gratulation, or invectives, according to your humor,
the triumphal car of those great conquerors. Had'
that true Protestant, Hoche, with an army not infected
with the slightest tincture of Popery, made good his
landing in Ireland, he would have saved you from a
great deal of the trouble which is taken to keep under
a description of your fellow-citizens obnoxious to you
from their religion. It would not have a month's cxistence, supposing his success. This is the alliance which, under the appearance of hostility, we act as
if we wished to promote. All is well, provided we
are safe from Popery.
It was not necessary for you, my dear Sir, to explain
yourself to mne (in justification of your good wishes to
your fellow-citizens) concerning your total alienation
from the principles of the Catholics. I am more concerned in what we agree than in what we differ. You know the impossibility of our forming any judgment
upon the opinions, religious, moral, or political, of
those who in the largest sense are called Protestants, -at least, as these opinions and tenets form a qualification for holding any civil, judicial, military,
or even ecclesiastical situation. I have no doubt of
the orthodox opinion of many, both of the clergy and
laity, professing the established religion in Ireland,
and of many even amongst the Dissenters, relative
to the great points of the Christian faith: but that
orthodoxy concerns them only as individuals. As a
qualification for employment, we all know that in Ireland it is not necessary that they should profess any
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 425
religion at all: so that the war that we make is upon
certain theological tenets, about which scholastic disputes are carried on cequo Marte, by controvertists,
on their side, as able and as learned, and perhaps as
well-intentioned, as those are who fight the battle on
the other part. To them I would leave those controversies. I would turn my mind to what is more
within its competence, and has been more my study,
(though, for a man of the world, I have thought of
those things,) -- I mean, the moral, civil, and political
good of the countries we belong to, and in which God
has appointed your station and mine. Let every man
be as pious as he pleases, and in the way that ho
pleases; but it is agreeable neither to piety nor to
policy to give exclusively all manner of civil privileges and advantages to a negative religion, (such is
the Protestant without a certain creed,) and at the
same time to deny those privileges to men whom we
know to agree to an iota in every one positive doctrine which all of us who profess the religion authoritatively taught in England hold ourselves, according to our faculties, bound to believe. The Catholics of
Ireland (as I have said) have the whole of our positive religion: our difference is only a negation of certain tenets of theirs. If we strip ourselves of thlat part of Catholicism, we abjure Christianity. If we
drive them from that holding, without engaging them
in some other positive religion, (which you know by
our qualifying laws we do not,) what do we better
than to hold out to them terrors on the one side,
and bounties on the other, in favor of that which,
for anything we know to the contrary, may be pure
atheism?
You are well aware, that, when a man renounces
? ? ? ? 426 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
the Roman religion, there is no civil inconvenience
or incapacity whatsoever which shall hinder him from
joining any new or old sect of Dissenters, or of forming a sect of his own invention upon the most antichristian principles. Let Mr. Thomas Paine obtain a pardon, (as on change of ministry he may,) there is
nothing to hinder him from setting up a church of
his own in the very midst of you. He is a naturalborn British subject. His French citizenship does
not disqualify him, at least upon a peace. This
Protestant apostle is as much above all suspicion of
Popery as the greatest and most zealous of your sanhedrim in Ireland can possibly be. On purchasing a
qualification, (which his friends of the Directory are
not so poor as to be unable to effect,) he may sit in
Parliament; and there is no doubt that there is not
one of your tests against Popery that he will not take
as fairly, and as much ex animo, as the best of your
zealot statesmen. I push this point no further, and
only adduce this example (a pretty strong one, and
fully in point) to show what I take to be the madness
and folly of driving men, under the existing circumstances, from any positive religion whatever into the
irreligion of the times, and its sure concomitant principles of anarchy.
When religion is brought into a question of civil
and political arrangement, it must be considered
more politically than theologically, at least by us,
who are nothing more than mere laymen. In that
light, the case of the Catholics of Ireland is peculiarly
hard, whether they be laity or clergy. If any of themn
take part, like the gentleman you mention, with some
of the most accredited Protestants of the country, in
projects which cannot be more abhorrent to your na
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 427
ture and disposition than they are to mine, - in that
case, however few these Catholic factions who are
united with factious Protestants may be, (and very
few they are now, whatever shortly they may become,) on their account the whole body is considered as of suspected fidelity to the crown, and as wholly
undeserving of its favor. But if, on the contrary, in
those districts of the kingdom where their numbers
are the greatest, where they make, in a manner, the
whole body of the people, (as, out of cities, in three
fourths of the kingdom they do,) these Catholics
show every mark of loyalty and zeal in support of
the government, which at best looks on them with
an evil eye, then their very loyalty is turned against
their claims. They are represented as a contented
and happy people, and that it is unnecessary to do
anything more in their favor. Thus the factious disposition of a few among the Catholics and the loyalty of the whole mass are equally assigned as reasons for
not putting them on a par with those Protestants who
are asserted by the government itself, which frowns
upon Papists, to be in a state of nothing short of actual rebellion, and in a strong disposition to make common cause with the worst foreign enemy that
these countries have ever had to deal with. What
in the end can come of all this?
As to the Irish Catholic clergy, their condition is
likewise most critical. If they endeavor by their influence to keep a dissatisfied laity in quiet, they are in danger of losing the little credit they possess, by
being considered as the instruments of a government
adverse to the civil interests of their flock. If they
let things take their course, they will be represented
as colluding with sedition, or at least tacitly encour
?
tions of Popish and Protestant opinions or interest are
the things by which men are at present menaced with
crusades by foreign invasion, or with seditions which
shake the foundations of the state at home. It is
long since all this combination of things has vanished
from the view of intelligent observers. The existence
of quite another system of opinions and interests is
now plain to the grossest sense. Are these the questions that raise a flame in the minds of men at this
day? If ever the Church and the Constitution of
England should fall in these islands, (and they will
fall together,) it is not Presbyterian discipline nor
Popish hierarchy that will rise upon their ruins. It
will not be the Church of Rome nor the Church of
Scotland, not the Church of Luther nor the Church
of Calvin. On the contrary, all these churches are
menaced, and menaced alike. It is the new fanatical religion, now in the heat of its first ferment, of
the Rigllts of Man, which rejects all establishments,
all discipline, all ecclesiastical, and in truth all civil
order, which will triumph, and which will lay prostrate your Church, which will destroy your distinctions, and which will put all your properties to auction, and disperse you over the earth. If the present establishment should fall, it is this religion which will
triumph in Ireland and in England, as it has triumphed in France. This religion, which laughs at
creeds and dogmas and confessions of faith, may be
fomented equally amongst all descriptions and all
sects, -- amongst nominal Catholics, and amongst
nominal Churchmen, and amongst those Dissenters
who know little and care less about a presbytery, or
any of its discipline, or any of its doctrine. Again, t
this new, this growing, this exterminatory system, all
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 399 these churches have a common concern to defend themselves. How the enthusiasts of this rising sect rejoice to see you of the old churches play their game, and stir and rake the cinders of animosities sunk in their ashes, in order to keep up the execution of
their plan for your common ruin!
I suppress all that is in my mind about the blindness of those of our clergy who will shut their eyes
to a thing which glares in such manifest day. If
some wretches amongst an indigent and disorderly
part of the populace raise a riot about tithes, there
are of these gentlemen ready to cry out that this is
an overt act of a treasonable conspiracy. Here the
bulls, and the pardons, and the crusade, and the Pope,
and the thunders of the Vatican are everywhere at
work. There is a plot to bring in a foreign power to
destroy the Church. Alas! it is not about popes,
but about potatoes, that the minds of this unhappy
people are agitated. It is not from the spirit of zeal,
but the spirit of whiskey, that these wretches act. Is
it, then, not conceived possible that a poor clown can
be unwilling, after paying three pounds rent to a gentleman in a brown coat, to pay fourteen shillings to one in a black coat, for his acre of potatoes, and tumultuously to desire some modification of the charge, without being supposed to have no other motive than
a frantic zeal for being thus double-taxed to another
set of landholders and another set of priests? Have
men no self-interest, no avarice, no repugnance to
public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive
minds, no undisciplined habits? Is there nothing
in the whole mob of irregular passions, which might
precipitate some of the common people, in some
places, to quarrel with a legal, because they feel it
? ? ? ? 400 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
to be a burdensome imposition? According to these
gentlemenf, no offence can be committed by Papists
but from zeal to their religion. To make room for
the vices of Papists, they clear the house of all the
vices of men. - Some of the common people (not one,
however, in ten thousand) commit disorders. Well!
punish them as you do, and as you ought to punish
them, for their violence against the just property of
each individual clergyman, as each individual suffers.
Support the injured rector, or the injured impropriator, in the enjoyment of the estate of which (whether
on the best plan or not) the laws have put him in
possession. Let the crime and the punishment stand
upon their own bottom. But now we ought all of
us, clergymen most particularly, to avoid assigning
another cause of quarrel, in order to infuse a new
source of bitterness into a dispute which personal
feelings on both sides will of themselves make bitter
enough, and thereby involve in it by religious descriptions men who have individually no share whatsoever in those irregular acts. Let us not make the malignant fictions of our own imaginations, heated
with factious controversies, reasons for keeping men
that are neither guilty nor justly suspected of crime
in a servitude equally dishonorable and unsafe to religion and to the state. When men are constantly
accused, but know themselves not to be guilty, they
must naturally abhor their accusers. There is no
character, when malignantly taken up and deliberately pursued, which more naturally excites indignation and abhorrence in mankind, especially in that part of mankind which suffers from it.
I do not pretend to take pride in an extravagant
attachment to any sect. Some gentlemen in Ireland
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENC i' IN IRELAND. 401
affect that sort of glory. It is to their taste. Their
piety, I take it for granted, justifies the ferv6r of their
zeal, and may palliate the excess of it. Being myself no more than a common layman, commonly informed ill controversies, leading only a very common life, and having only a common citizen's interest in
the Church or in the State, yet to you I will say, in
justice to my owll sentiments, that not one of those
zealots for a Protestant interest wishes more sinlcerely
than I do, perhaps not half so sincerely, for the support of the Established Church in both these kingdoms. It is a great link towards holding fast the connection of religion with the State, and for keeping these two islands, in their present critical independence of constitution, in a close connection of opinion and affection. I wish it well, as the religion
of the greater number of the primary land-proprietors of the kingdom, with whom all establishments
of Church and State, for strong political reasons,
ought in my opinion to be firmly connected. I
wish it well, because it is more closely combined
than any other of the church systems with the crown,
which is the stay of the mixed Constitution, - because it is, as things now stand, the sole connecting
political principle between the constitutions of the
two independent kingdoms. I have another and
infinitely a stronger reason for wishing it well: it
is, that in the present time I consider it as one of
the main pillars of the Christian religion itself. Thle
body and substance of every religion I regard much
more than any of the forms and dogmas of the particular sects. Its fall would leave a great void, which
nothing else, of which I can form any distinct idea,
migllt fill. I respect the Catholic hierarchy and the
VOL. VI. 26
? ? ? ? 402 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
Presbyterian republic; but I know that the hope or
the fear of establislling either of them is, in these
kingdoms, equally climerical, even if I preferred one
or the other of them to the Establishment, which certainly I do not.
These are some of my reasons for wishing the sup
port of the Church of Ireland as by law established,
These reasons are founded as well on the absolute
as on the relative situation of that kingdom. But
is it because I love the Church, and the King, and
the privileges of Parliamlent, that I am to be ready for
aly violence, or any injiustice, or any absurdity, in the
means of supporting any of these powers, or all of
them together? Instead of prating about Protestant
ascendencies, Protestanlt Parliaments ought, in my
opinion, to think at last of becoming patriot Parliaments.
The legislature of Ireland, like all legislatures,
ougllt to frame its laws to suit the people and the
circumstances of the counltry, and not any longer
to make it their whole business to force the nature,
the temper, and the inveterate habits of a nation to
a conformity to speculative systems concerning any
kind of laws. Ireland has an established government, and a religion legally established, which are
to be preserved. It has a people who tre to be pre.
served too, and to be led by reason, principle, senti
ment, and interest to acquiesce in that government.
Ireland is a country under peculiar circumstances.
The people of Ireland are a very mixed people; and
the quantities of the several ingredients in the mix
ture are very much disproportioned to each other.
Are we to govern this mixed body as if it were composed of the most simple elements, comprehending
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 403
the whole in one system of benevolent legislation?
or are we not rather to provide for the several parts
according to the various and diversified necessities
of the heterogeneous nature of the mass? Would
not common reason and common honesty dictate to
us the policy of regulating the people, in the several
descriptions of which they are composed, according
to the natural ranks and classes of an orderly civil
society, under a common protecting sovereign, and
under a form of constitution favorable at once to authority and to freedom, - such as the British Conlstitution boasts to be, and such as it is to those who enjoy it?
You have an ecclesiastical establishment, which,
though the religion of the prince, and of most of
the first class of landed proprietors, is not the religion of the major part of the inhabitants, and which
consequently does not answer to them any one purpose of a religious establishment. This is a state of
things which no man in his senses can call perfectly
happy. But it is the state of Ireland. Two hundred
years of experiment show it to be unalterable. Many
a fierce struggle has passed between the parties. The
result is, you cannot make the people Protestants, and
they cannot shake off a Protestant government. This
is what experience teaches, and what all men of sense
of all descriptions know. To-day the question is
this: Are we to make the best of this situation,
which we cannot alter? The question is: Shall
the condition of the body of the people be alleviated in other things, on account of their necessary
suffering from their being subject to the burdens of
two religious establishments, from one of which they
do not partake the least, living or dying, either of
? ? ? ? 404 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
instruction or of consolation, - or shall it be aggravated, by stripping the people thus loaded of everything which might support and indemnify them in this state, so as to leave them naked of every sort of
right and of every name of franchise, to outlaw them
from the Constitution, and to cut off (perhaps) three
millions of plebeian subjects, without reference to
property, or any other qualification, from all connection with the popular representation of the kingdom?
As to religion, it has nothing at all to do with the
proceeding. Liberty is not sacrificed to a zeal for religion, but a zeal for religion is pretended and assumed to destroy liberty. The Catholic religion is completely free. It has no establishment, - but it
is recognized, permitted, and, in a degree, protected
by the laws. If a man is satisfied to be a slave, lihe
may be a Papist with perfect impunity. He may say
mass, or hear it, as he pleases; but he must consider
himself as an outlaw from the British Constitution.
If the constitutional liberty of the subject were not
the thing aimed at, the direct reverse course would
be taken. The franchise would have been permitted,
and the mass exterminated. But the conscience of
a man left, and a tenderness for it hypocritically pretended, is to make it a trap to catch his liberty.
So much is this the design, that the violent partisans of this scheme fairly take up all the maxims and
arguments, as well as the practices, by which tyranny
has fortified itself at all times. Trusting wholly in
their strength and power,' (and upon this they reckon, as always ready to strike wherever they wish to
direct the storm,) they abandon all pretext of the
general good of the community. They say, that, if
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 405
the people, under any given modification, obtain the
smallest portion or particle of constitutional freedom,
it will be impossible for them to hold their property.
They tell us that they act only on the defensive.
They inform the public of Europe that their estates
are made up of forfeitures and confiscations from the
natives; that, if the body of people obtain votes, any
number of votes, however small, it will be a step to
the choice of members of their own religion; that the
House of Commons, in spite of the influence of nineteen parts in twenty of the landed interest now in
their hands, will be composed in the whole, or in far
the major part, of Papists; that this Popish House of
Commons will instantly pass a law to confiscate all
their estates, which it will not be in their power to
save even by entering into that Popish party themselves, because there are prior claimants to be satisfied; that, as to the House of Lords, though neither Papists nor Protestants have a share ill electing them,
the body of the peerage will be so obliging and disinterested as to fall in with this exterminatory scheme,
which is to forfeit all their estates, the largest part of
the kingdom; and, to crown all, that his Majesty will
give his cheerful assent to this causeless act of attainder of his innocent and faithful Protestant subjects;
that they will be or are to be left, without house
or land, to the dreadful resource of living by their
wits, out of which they are already frightened by the
apprehension of this spoliation with which they are
threatened; that, therefore, they cannot so much as
listen to any arguments drawn from equity or from
national or constitutional policy: the sword is at their
throats; beggary and famine at their door. See
what it is to have a good look-out, and to see danger,
at the end of a sufficiently long perspective!
? ? ? ? 406 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
This is, indeed, to speak plain, though to speak
nothing very new. The same thing has been said in
all times and in all languages. The language of tyranny has been invariable: " The general good is inconsistent with my personal safety. " Justice and liberty seem so alarming to these gentlemen, that they are
not ashamed even to slander their own titles, to calufminiate and call in doubt their right to their own estates, and to consider themselves as novel disseizors, usurpers, and intruders, rather than lose a pretext for
becoming oppressors of their fellow-citizens, whom
they (not I) choose to describe themselves as having
robbed.
Instead of putting themselves in this odious point
of light, one would think they would wish to let Time
draw his oblivious veil over the unpleasant modes by
which lordships and demesnes have been acquired in
theirs, and almost in all other countries upon earth.
It mighlt be imagined, that, when the sufferer (if a
sufferer exists) had forgot the wrong, they would be
pleased to forget it too, - that they would permit the
sacred name of possession to stand in the place of the
melancholy and unpleasant title of grantees of confiscation, which, though firm and valid in law, surely
merits the name that a great Roman jurist gave to a
title at least as valid in his nation as confiscation
would be either in his or in ours:. Tristis et luctuosa
successio.
Such is the situation of every man who comes inl
upon the ruin of another; his succeeding, under this
circumstance, is tristis et luctuosa successio. If it had
been the fate of any gentleman to profit by the confiscation of his neighbor, one would think he would be
more disposed to give him a valuable interest under
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 407
him in his land, or to allow him a pension, as I understand one worthy person has done, withlout fear or
apprehension that his benevolence to a ruined family
would be construed into a recognition of the forfeited
title. The public of England, the other day, acted
in thllis manner towards Lord Newburgh, a Catholic.
Tllough the estate had been vested by law in the
greatest of the public charities, they have given himn
a pension from his confiscation. They have gone
further in other cases. 011 tlle last rebellion, in
1745, in Scotland, several forfeitures were incurred.
They had leien disposed of by Parliament to certainl lauidable uses. Parliament reversed the method
which they had adopted in Lord Newburgh's case, and
in my opinion did better: tlley gave the forfeited estates to the successors of the forfeitilg proprietors,
chllargeable in part with the uses. Is this, or anything like this, asked in favor of any human creature
in Ireland? It is bounty, it is charity, - wise bounty, and politic charity; but no mall can claim it as a
right. Here no such thing is claimed as right, or
begged as charity. The demand hlas all object as
distanlt from all considerations of this sort as anly two
extremes can be. Tlle people desire the privileges inseparably annexed, since Magna Charta, to the fieehold which they have by descent or obtain as the fruits of tleir industry. Tlhey call for no manl's estate;
they desire not to be dispossessed of their own.
But this melancholy and invidious title is a favorite
(and, like favorites, always of the least merit) with
those who possess every other title upon earth along
with it. For this purpose they revive the bitter memory of every dissension which has torn to pieces their
miserable country for ages. After what has passed
? ? ? ? 408 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
in 1782, one would not think that decorum, to say
nothing of policy, would permit them to call up, by
magic charms, the grounds, reasons, and principles
of those terrible confiscatory and exterminatory periods. They would not set men upon calling from
the quiet sleep of death any Samuel, to ask him by
what act of arbitrary monarchs, by what inquisitions
of corrupted tribunals and tortured jurors, by what
fictitious tenures invented to dispossess whole unoffending tribes and their chieftains. They would not conjure up the ghosts from the ruins of castles and
churches, to tell for what attempt to struggle for the
independence of an Irish legislature, and to raise armies of volunteers without regular commissions from the crown in support of that independence, the estates of the old Irish nobility and gentry had been confiscated. They would not wantonly call on those
phantoms to tell by what English acts of Parliament,
forced upon two reluctant kings, the lands of their
country were put up to a mean and scandalous auction in every goldsmith's shop in London, or chopped to pieces and cut into rations, to pay the mercenary
soldiery of a regicide usurper. They would not be
so fond of titles under Cromwell, who, if he avenged
an Irish rebellion against the sovereign authority
of the Parliament of England, had himself rebelled
against the very Parliament whose sovereignty he
asserted, full as much as the Irish nation, which he
was sent to subdue and confiscate, could rebel against
that Parliament, or could rebel against the king,
against whom both he and the Parliament which he
served, and which he betrayed, had both of them rebelled.
The gentlemen who hold the language of the day
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 409
know perfectly well that the Irish in 1641 pretended,
at least, that they did not rise against the kinlg: nor
in fact did they, whatever constructions law might
put upon their act. But full surely they rebelled
against the authority of the Parliament of England,
and they openly professed so to do. Admitting (I
have now no time to discuss the matter) the enormous and unpardonable magnitude of this their crime,
they rued it in their persons, and in those of their
children and their grandchildren, even to the fifth
and sixth generations. Admitting, then, the enormity of this unnatural rebellion in favor of the independence of Ireland, will it follow that it must be
avenged forever? Will it follow that it must be
avenged on thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of those whom they can never trace, by the labors of the most subtle metaphysician of the traduction of crimes, or the most inquisitive genealogist of proscription, to the descendant of any one concerned
in that nefarious Irish rebellion against the Parliament of England?
If, however, you could find out these pedigrees of
guilt, I do not think the difference would be essential.
History records many things which ought to make us
hate evil actions; but neither history, nor morals,
nor policy can teach us to punish innocent men on
that account. What lesson does the iniquity of prevalent factions read to us? It ought to lesson us
into an abhorrence of the abuse of our own power
in our own day, when we hate its excesses so much
in other persons and in other times. To that school
true statesmen ought to be satisfied to leave mankind.
They ought not to call from the dead all the discussions and litigations which formerly inflamed the
? ? ? ? 410 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ. ,
furious factions which had torn their country to
pieces; they ought not to rake into the hideous and
abominable things which were done inl the turbulent
fury of an injured, robbed, and persecuted people,
and which were afterwards cruelly revenged in the
execution, and as outrageously and shamefully exaggerated in the representation, in order, an hllundred
and fifty years after, to find some color for justifying
them in the eternal proscription and civil excommunication of a whole people.
Let us come to a later period of those confiscations
with the memory of which the gentlemen who triumph in the acts of 1782 are so much delighted. The
Irish again rebelled against the English Parliament
in 1688, and the English Parliament again put up to
sale the greatest part of their estates. I do not presumne to defend the Irish for this rebellion, nor to
blame the English Parliament for this confiscation.
The Irish, it is true, did not revolt from King James's
power. He threw himself upon their fidelity, and
they supported him to the best of their feeble power.
Be the crime of that obstinate adherence to an abdicated sovereign, against a prince whom tle Parliaments of Ireland and Scotland had recognized, what it may, I do not mean to justify this rebellion more
than the former. It might, however, admit some palliation il tllem. In generous minds some small degree
of compassion might be excited for an error, where
they were misled, as Cicero says to a conqueror,
quadam slpeie et sinilitudine pacis, not without a mistaken appearance of duty, and for which the guilty
have suffered, by exile abroad and slavery at llome,
to the extent of their folly or their offence. Tl4e best
calculators compute that Ireland lost two hundred
? ? ? ? ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 411 thousand of her inhabitants in that struggle.
If the principle of the English and Scottish resistance at the Revolution is to be justified, (as sure I am it is,) the submission of Ireland must be somewhat extenuated. For, if the Irish resisted King William, they resisted him on the very same principle that the English and Scotch resisted King James. The Irish Catholics
must have been the very worst and the most truly unnatural of rebels, if they had not supported a prince whom they had seen attacked, not for any designs
against their religion or their liberties, but for an
extreme partiality for their sect, and who, far from
trespassing on their liberties and properties, secured both them and the independence of their country in much the same manner that we have seen the same things done at the period of 1782, -- I trust the last revolution in Ireland.
That the Irish Parliarment of King James did in
some particulars, though feebly, imitate the rigor
which had been used towards the Irish, is true
enough. Blamable enough they were for what tliey
had done, though under the greatest possible provocation. I shall never praise confiscations or counterconfiscations as long as I live. When they happen by necessity, I shall think the necessity lamentable
and odious: I shall think that anything done under
it ought not to pass into precedent, or to be adopted
by choice, or to produce any of those shocking retaliations which never suffer dissensions to subside. Least of all would I fix the transitory spirit of civil
fury by perpetuating and methodizillg it in tyrannic
government. If it were permitted to argue with
power, might one not ask these gentlemen whether
it would not be more natural, instead of wantonly
? ? ? ? 412 LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ.
mooting these questions concerning their property,
as if it were an exercise in law, to found it on the
solid rock of prescription,- the soundest, the most
general, and the most recognized title between man
and man that is known in municipal or in public
jurisprudence? - a title in which not arbitrary institutions, but the eternal order of things, gives judgment; a title which is not the creature, but the master, of positive law; a title which, though not
fixed in its term, is rooted in its principle in the
law of Nature itself, and is indeed the original
ground of all known property: for all property in
soil will always be traced back to that source, and
will rest there. The miserable natives of Ireland,
who ninety-nine in an hundred are tormented with
quite other cares, and are bowed down to labor for
the bread of the hour, are not, as gentlemen pretend, plodding with antiquaries for titles of centuries
ago to the estates of the great lords and squires for
whom they labor. But if they were thinking of the
titles which gentlemen labor to beat into their heads,
where can they bottom their own claims, but in a
presumption and a proof that these lands had at
some time been possessed by their ancestors? These
gentlemen (for they have lawyers amongst them)
know as well as I that in England we have had always a prescription or limitation, as all nations have,
against each other. The crown was excepted; but
that exception is destroyed, and we have lately established a sixty years' possession as against the
crown. All titles terminate in prescription, - in
which (differently from Time in the fabulous instances) the son devours the father, and the last
prescription eats up all the former.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
ON
THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 1797.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
DEAR SIR,- In the reduced state of body and
in the dejected state of mind in which I filnd
myself at this very advanced period of my life, it is
a great consolation to me to know that a cause I ever
have had so very near my heart is taken up by a
man of your activity and talents.
It is very true that your late friend, my ever dear
and honored son, was in the highest degree solicitous
about the final event of a business which he also had
pursued for a long time with infinite zeal, and no
small degree of success. It was not above half an
hour before he left me forever that he spoke with
considerable earnestness on this very subject. If I
had needed any incentives to do my best for freeing
the body of my country from the grievances under
which they labor, this alone would certainly call forth
all my endeavors.
Tlhe person who succeeded to the government of
Ireland about the time of that afflicting event had
been all along of my sentiments and yours upon this
subject; and far from needing to be stimulated by
me, that incomparable person, and those in whom he
strictly confided, even went before me in their resolution to pursue the great end of government, the satisfaction and concord of the people with whose welfare they were charged. I cannot bear to think on the
causes by which this great plan of policy, so man
? ? ? ? 416 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
ifestly beneficial to both kingdoms, has been defeated.
Your mistake with regard to me lies in supposing
that I did not, when his removal was in agitation,
strongly and personally represent to several of his
Majesty's ministers, to whom I could have the most
ready access, the true state of Ireland, and the mischiefs which sooner or later must arise from subjecting the mass of the people to the capricious and interested domination of all exceeding small faction and its dependencies.
That representation was made the last time, or
very nearly the last time, that I have ever had the
honor of seeing those ministers. I am so far from
having any credit with them, on this, or any other
public matters, that I have reason to be certain, if it
were known that any person in office in Ireland, from
the hilghest to the lowest, were influenced by my opinions, and disposed to act upon them, such an one
would be instantly turned out of his employment.
You have formed, to my person a flattering, yet in
truth a very erroneous opinion, of my power with
those who direct the public measures. I never have
been directly or indirectly consulted about anything
that is done. The judgment of the eminent and able
persons who conduct public affairs is undoubtedly
superior to mine; but self-partiality induces almost
every man to defer something to his own. Nothing
is more notorious than that I have the misfortune of
thinking that no one capital measure relative to political arrangements, and still less that a new military
plan for the defence of either kingdom in this arduous
war, has been taken upon any other principle than
such as must conduct us to inevitable ruin.
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 417
In the state of my mind, so discordant with the
tone of ministers, and still more discordant with the
toile of opposition, you may judge what degree of
weight I am likely to have with either of the parties
who divide this kingdom, - even though I were endowed with strength of body, or were possessed of
any active situation in the government, which might
give success to my endeavors. But the fact is, since
the day of my unspeakable calamity, except in the attentions of a very few old and compassionate friends,
I am totally out of all social intercourse. My health
has gone down very rapidly; and I have been brought
hither with very faint hopes of life, and enfeebled to
such a degree as those who had known me some time
ago could scarcely think credible. Since I came
hither, my sufferings have been greatly aggravated,
and my little strength still further reduced; so that,
though I am told the symptoms of my disorder begin
to carry a more favorable aspect, I pass the far larger part of the twenty-four hours, indeed almost the
whole, either in my bed or lying upon the couch
from which I dictate this. Had you been apprised
of this circumstance, you could not have expected
anything, as you seem to do, from my active exertions. I could do nothing, if I was still stronger, not
even si meus adforet Hector.
There is no hope for the body of the people of Ireland, as long as those who are in power with you
shall make it the great object of their policy to propagate an opinion on this side of the water that the
mass of their countrymen are not. to be trusted by
their government, and that the only hold which England has upon Ireland consists in preserving a certain very small number of gentlemen in filll possesVOL. VI. 27
? ? ? ? 418 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
sion of a monopoly of that kingdom. This system
has disgusted many others besides Catholics and Dissenters.
As to those who on your side are in the opposition
to government, they are composed of persons several of whom I love and revere. They have been irritated by a treatment too much for the ordinary patience of mankind to bear into the adoption of schemes which, however argumentatively specious, would go
practically to the inevitable ruin of the kingdom.
The opposition always connects the emancipation of
the Catholics with these schemes of reformation: indeed, it makes the former only a member of the latter project. The gentlemen who enforce that opposition are, in my opinion, playing the game of their adversaries with all their might; and there is no
third party in Ireland (nor in England neither) to
separate things that are in themselves so distinct, - I
mean the admitting people to the benefits of the Constitution, and a change in the form of the Constitution itself.
As every one knows that a great part of the constitution of the Irish House of Commons was formed
about the year 1614 expressly for bringing that
House into a state of dependence, and that the new
representative was at that time seated and installed
by force and violence, nothing can be more impolitic than for those who wish the House to stand on
its present basis (as, for one, I most sincerely do)
to make it appear to have kept too much the principle of its first institution, and to continue to be as
little a virtual as it is an actual representative of the
commons. It is the degeneracy of such an institution,
so vicious in its principle, that is to be wished for. If
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 419
men have the real benefit of a sympathetic representation, none but those who are heated and intoxicated
with theory will look for any other. This sort of representation, my dear Sir, must wholly depend, not
on the force with which it is upheld, but upon the
prudence of those who have influence upon it. Indeed, without some such prudence in the use of authority, I do not know, at least in the present time, how any power can long continue.
If it be true that. both parties are carrying things
to extremities in different ways, the object which you
and I have in common, that is to say, the union and
concord of our country on the basis of the actual representation, without risking those evils which any
change in the form of our legislature must inevitably
bring on, can never be obtained. On the part of the
Catholics (that is to say, of the body of the people of
the kingdom) it is a terrible alternative, either to
submit to the yoke of declared and insulting enemies,
or to seek a remedy in plunging themselves into the
horrors and crimes of that Jacobinisin which unfortunately is not disagreeable to the principles and inclinations of, I am afraid, the majority of what we call the Protestants of Ireland. The Protestant part of
that kingdom is represented by the government itself
to be, by whole counties, in nothing less than open
rebellion. I am sure that it is everywhere teeming
with dangerous conspiracy.
I believe it will be found, that, though the principles of the Catholics, and the incessant endeavors
of their clergy, have kept them from being generally infected with the systems of this time, yet, whenever their situati n brings them nearer into contact with the Jacobin Protestants, they are more or less
infected with their doctrines.
? ? ? ? 420 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
It is a matter for melancholy reflection, but I am
fully convinced, that many persons in Ireland would
be glad that the Catholics should become more and
more infected with the Jacobin madness, in order to
furnish new arguments for fortifying them in their
monopoly. On ally other ground it is impossible to
account for the late language of your men in power.
If statesmen, (let me suppose for argument,) upon
the most solid political principles, conceive themselves obliged to resist the wishes of the far more numerous, and, as things stand, not the worse part of the community, one would think they would naturally put their refusal as much as possible upon temporary grounds, and that they would act towards them in the most conciliatory manner, and would talk to
them in the most gentle and soothing language: for'
refusal, in itself, is not a very gracious thing; and,
unfortunately, men are very quickly irritated out
of their principles. Nothing is more discouraging to
the loyalty of any description of men than to represent to them that their humiliation and subjection
make a principal part in the fundamental and invariable policy which regards the conjunction of these
two kingdoms. This is not the way to give them a
warm interest in that conjunction.
My poor opinion is, that the closest connection between Great Britain and Ireland is essential to the
well-being, I had almost said, to the very being, of
the two kingdoms. For that purpose I humbly
conceive that the whole of the superior, and what I
should call imperial politics, ought to have its residence here; and that Ireland, locally, civilly, and
commercially independent, ought politically to look
up to Great Britainl in all matters of peace or of
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 421
war, -in all those points to be guided by her,and, in a word, with her to live and to die. At
bottom, Ireland has no other choice, --I mean, no
other rational choice.
I think, indeed, that Great Britain would be ruined
by the separation of Ireland; but as there are degrees
even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily onil Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the
most completely undone country in the world, - the
most wretched, the most distracted, and, in the end,
the most desolate part of the habitable globe. Little
do many people in Ireland consider how much of its
prosperity has been owing to, and still depends upon,
its intimate connection with this kingdom. But, more
sensible of this great truth than perhaps any other
man~, I have never conceived, or can conceive, that
the connection is strengthened by making the major
part of the inhabitants of your country believe that
their ease, and their satisfaction, and their equalization with tile rest of their fellow-subjects of Ireland
are things adverse to the principles of that connlection, - or that their subjection to a small monopolizing junto, composed of one of tile smallest of their own internal factions, is the very condition upon
which tlle harmony of the two kingdoms essentially
depends. I was sorry to hear that this principle, or
somnctlling not unlike it, was publicly and fully avowed
by persons of great rank and authority in tile House
of Lords ill Ireland.
As to a participation on the part of the Catholics
in the privileges and capacities whichl are withheld,
without meaning wholly to depreciate their importance, if I hiad the honor of being all Irish Catholic,
I should be comntent to expect satisfaction upoIl thlat
? ? ? ? 422 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
subject with patience, until the minds of my adversaries, few, but powerful, were come to a proper temper: because, if the Catholics did enjoy, without fraud, chicane, or partiality, some fair portion of
those advantages which the law, even as now the law
is, leaves open to them, and if the rod were not shaken over them at every turn, their present condition
would be tolerable; as compared with their former
condition, it would be happy. But the most favorable laws can do very little towards the happiness of
a people, when the disposition of the ruling power
is adverse to them. Men do not live upon blotted
paper. The favorable or the hostile mind of the
ruling power is of far more importance to mankind,
for good or evil, than the black-letter of any statute.
Late acts of Parliament, whilst they fixed at least a
temporary bar to the hopes and progress of the larger
description of the nation, opened to them certain subordinate objects of equality; but it is impossible that
the people should imagine that any fair measure of
advantage is intended to them, when they hear the
laws by which they were admitted to this limited
qualification publicly reprobated as excessive and inconsiderate. They must think that there is a hankering after the old penal and persecuting code. Their alarm must be great, when that declaration is made
by a person in very high and important office in the
House of Commons, and as the very first specimen
and auspice of a new government.
All this is very unfortunate. I have the honor of
an old acquaintance, and entertain, in common with
you, a very high esteem for the few English persons
who are concerned in the government of Ireland;
but I am not ignorant of the relation these transitory
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFATRS OF IRELAND. 423
ministers bear to the more settled Irish part of your
administration. It is a delicate topic, upon which I
wish to say but little, though my reflections upon it
are many and serious. There is a great cry against
English influence. I am quite sure that it is Irish
influence that dreads the English habits.
Great disorders have long prevailed in Ireland. It
is not long since that the Catholics were the suffering
party from those disorders. I am sure they were not
protected as the case required. Their sufferings became a matter of discussion in Parliament. It produced the most infuriated declamation against them that I have ever read. An inquiry was moved into
the facts. The declamation was at least tolerated, if
not approved. The inquiry was absolutely rejected.
In that case, what is left for those who are abandoned
by government, but to join with the persons who are
capable of injuring them or protecting them as they
oppose or concur in their designs? This will produce
a very fatal kind of union amongst the people; but
it is an union which an unequal administration of
justice tends necessarily to produce.
If anything could astonish one at this time, it is
the war that the rulers in Ireland think it proper to
carry on against the person whom they call the Pope,
and against all his adherents, whenever they think
they have the power of manifesting their hostility.
Without in the least derogating from the talents of
your theological politicians, or from the military abilities of your commanders (who act on the same principles) in Ireland, and without derogating from the zeal of either, it appears to me that the Protestant
Directory of Paris, as statesmen, and the Protestant
hero, Buonaparte, as a general, have done more to
? ? ? ? 424 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
destroy the said Pope and all his adherents, in all
their capacities, than the junto in Ireland have ever
been able to effect. You must submit your fasces to
theirs, and at best be contented to follow with songs
of gratulation, or invectives, according to your humor,
the triumphal car of those great conquerors. Had'
that true Protestant, Hoche, with an army not infected
with the slightest tincture of Popery, made good his
landing in Ireland, he would have saved you from a
great deal of the trouble which is taken to keep under
a description of your fellow-citizens obnoxious to you
from their religion. It would not have a month's cxistence, supposing his success. This is the alliance which, under the appearance of hostility, we act as
if we wished to promote. All is well, provided we
are safe from Popery.
It was not necessary for you, my dear Sir, to explain
yourself to mne (in justification of your good wishes to
your fellow-citizens) concerning your total alienation
from the principles of the Catholics. I am more concerned in what we agree than in what we differ. You know the impossibility of our forming any judgment
upon the opinions, religious, moral, or political, of
those who in the largest sense are called Protestants, -at least, as these opinions and tenets form a qualification for holding any civil, judicial, military,
or even ecclesiastical situation. I have no doubt of
the orthodox opinion of many, both of the clergy and
laity, professing the established religion in Ireland,
and of many even amongst the Dissenters, relative
to the great points of the Christian faith: but that
orthodoxy concerns them only as individuals. As a
qualification for employment, we all know that in Ireland it is not necessary that they should profess any
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 425
religion at all: so that the war that we make is upon
certain theological tenets, about which scholastic disputes are carried on cequo Marte, by controvertists,
on their side, as able and as learned, and perhaps as
well-intentioned, as those are who fight the battle on
the other part. To them I would leave those controversies. I would turn my mind to what is more
within its competence, and has been more my study,
(though, for a man of the world, I have thought of
those things,) -- I mean, the moral, civil, and political
good of the countries we belong to, and in which God
has appointed your station and mine. Let every man
be as pious as he pleases, and in the way that ho
pleases; but it is agreeable neither to piety nor to
policy to give exclusively all manner of civil privileges and advantages to a negative religion, (such is
the Protestant without a certain creed,) and at the
same time to deny those privileges to men whom we
know to agree to an iota in every one positive doctrine which all of us who profess the religion authoritatively taught in England hold ourselves, according to our faculties, bound to believe. The Catholics of
Ireland (as I have said) have the whole of our positive religion: our difference is only a negation of certain tenets of theirs. If we strip ourselves of thlat part of Catholicism, we abjure Christianity. If we
drive them from that holding, without engaging them
in some other positive religion, (which you know by
our qualifying laws we do not,) what do we better
than to hold out to them terrors on the one side,
and bounties on the other, in favor of that which,
for anything we know to the contrary, may be pure
atheism?
You are well aware, that, when a man renounces
? ? ? ? 426 LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
the Roman religion, there is no civil inconvenience
or incapacity whatsoever which shall hinder him from
joining any new or old sect of Dissenters, or of forming a sect of his own invention upon the most antichristian principles. Let Mr. Thomas Paine obtain a pardon, (as on change of ministry he may,) there is
nothing to hinder him from setting up a church of
his own in the very midst of you. He is a naturalborn British subject. His French citizenship does
not disqualify him, at least upon a peace. This
Protestant apostle is as much above all suspicion of
Popery as the greatest and most zealous of your sanhedrim in Ireland can possibly be. On purchasing a
qualification, (which his friends of the Directory are
not so poor as to be unable to effect,) he may sit in
Parliament; and there is no doubt that there is not
one of your tests against Popery that he will not take
as fairly, and as much ex animo, as the best of your
zealot statesmen. I push this point no further, and
only adduce this example (a pretty strong one, and
fully in point) to show what I take to be the madness
and folly of driving men, under the existing circumstances, from any positive religion whatever into the
irreligion of the times, and its sure concomitant principles of anarchy.
When religion is brought into a question of civil
and political arrangement, it must be considered
more politically than theologically, at least by us,
who are nothing more than mere laymen. In that
light, the case of the Catholics of Ireland is peculiarly
hard, whether they be laity or clergy. If any of themn
take part, like the gentleman you mention, with some
of the most accredited Protestants of the country, in
projects which cannot be more abhorrent to your na
? ? ? ? LETTER ON THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. 427
ture and disposition than they are to mine, - in that
case, however few these Catholic factions who are
united with factious Protestants may be, (and very
few they are now, whatever shortly they may become,) on their account the whole body is considered as of suspected fidelity to the crown, and as wholly
undeserving of its favor. But if, on the contrary, in
those districts of the kingdom where their numbers
are the greatest, where they make, in a manner, the
whole body of the people, (as, out of cities, in three
fourths of the kingdom they do,) these Catholics
show every mark of loyalty and zeal in support of
the government, which at best looks on them with
an evil eye, then their very loyalty is turned against
their claims. They are represented as a contented
and happy people, and that it is unnecessary to do
anything more in their favor. Thus the factious disposition of a few among the Catholics and the loyalty of the whole mass are equally assigned as reasons for
not putting them on a par with those Protestants who
are asserted by the government itself, which frowns
upon Papists, to be in a state of nothing short of actual rebellion, and in a strong disposition to make common cause with the worst foreign enemy that
these countries have ever had to deal with. What
in the end can come of all this?
As to the Irish Catholic clergy, their condition is
likewise most critical. If they endeavor by their influence to keep a dissatisfied laity in quiet, they are in danger of losing the little credit they possess, by
being considered as the instruments of a government
adverse to the civil interests of their flock. If they
let things take their course, they will be represented
as colluding with sedition, or at least tacitly encour
?
