No More Learning

Arguments may be used to weaken your confidence in that public security; because, from some unpleasant appearances, there is a suspicion that Parliament itself is somewhat fallen from its independent spirit. How far this supposition may be founded in fact we are unwilling to determine. But we are well assured from experience, that, even if all
were true that is contended for, and ill the extent,
too, in which it is argued, yet, as long as the solid
and well-disposed forms of this Constitution remain,
there ever is within Parliament itself a power of
renovating its principles, and effecting a self-reformation, which no other plan of government has ever
contained. This Constitution has therefore admitted
innumerable improvements, either for the correction.
of the original scheme, or for removing corruptions,.
or for bringing its principles better to suit those
changes which have successively happened ill the:
VOL. VI. 13
? ? ? ? 194 ADDRESS TC THE BRITISH COLONISTS circumstances of the nation or in the manners of the people.
We feel that the growth of the colonies is such
a change of circumstances, and that our present dispute is an exigency as pressing as any which ever demanded a revision of our government. Public
troubles have often called upon this country to look
into its Constitution. It has ever been bettered by
such a revision. If our happy and luxuriant increase of dominion, and our diffused population,
have outgrown the limits of a Constitution made
for a contracted object, we ought to bless God, who
has furnished us with this noble occasion for displaying our skill and beneficence in enlarging the scale of rational happiness, and of making the politic generosity of this kingdom as extensive as its fortune. If we set about this great work, on both
sides, with the same conciliatory turn of mind, we
may now, as in former times, owe even to our mutual mistakes, contentions, and animosities, the lasting concord, freedom, happiness, and glory of this empire.
Gentlemen, the distance between us, with other
obstructions, has caused much misrepresentation of
our mutual sentiments. We, therefore, to obviate
them as well as we are able, take this method of
assuring you of our thorough detestation of the
whole war, and particularly the mercenary and savage war carried on or attempted against you, --
our thorough abhorrence of all addresses adverse
to you, whether public or private, -our assurances
of an invariable affection towards you,-our constant regard to your privileges and liberties,- and,our opinion of the solid security you ought to en
? ? ? ? IN NORTH AMERICA. 195
joy for them, under the paternal care and nurture
of a protecting Parliament.
Though many of us have earnestly wished that
the authority of that august and venerable body,
so necessary in many respects to the union of the
whole, should be rather limited by its own equity and discretion than by any bounds described by
positive laws and public compacts, - and though we
felt the extreme difficulty, by any theoretical limitations, of qualifying that authority, so as to preserve one part and deny another, - and though you
(as we gratefully acknowledge) had acquiesced most
cheerfully under that prudent reserve of the Constitution, at that happy moment when neither you
nor we apprehended a further return of the exercise of invidious powers, we are now as fully persuaded as you can be, by the malice, inconstancy,
and perverse inquietude of many men, and by the
incessant endeavors of an arbitrary faction, now too
powerful, that our common necessities do require a
full explanation and ratified security for your liberties and our quiet.
Although his Majesty's condescension, in committing the direction of his affairs into the hands of the
known friends of his family and of the liberties of
all his people, would, we admit, be a great means of
giving repose to your minds, as it must give infinite
facility to reconciliation, yet we assure you that we
think, with such a security as we recommend, adopted from necessity and not choice, even by the unhappy authors and instruments of the public misfortunes, that the terms of reconciliation, if once accepted by Parliament, would not be broken. We
also pledge ourselves to you, that we should give,
? ? ? ? 19o ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH COLONISTS.
even to those unhappy persons, an hearty support
in effectuating the peace of the empire, and every
opposition in an attempt to cast it again into disorder.
When that happy hour shall arrive, let us in all
affection recommend to you the wisdom of contillnuing, as ill former times, or even in a more ample
measure, the support of your government, and even
to give to your administration some degree of reciprocal interest in your frieedom. We earnestly wish
you not to furnish your enemies, here or elsewhere,
with any sort of pretexts for reviving quarrels by too
reserved and severe or penurious an exercise of those
sacred rights which no pretended abuse in the exercise ought to impair, nor, by overstraining the principles of freedom, to make them less compatible with those haughty sentiments in others which the very
same principles may be apt to breed in minds not
tempered with the utmost equity and justice.
The well-wishers of the liberty and union of this
empire salute you, and recommend you most heartily
to the Divine protection.
? ? ? ? LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY
SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, IN RELATION TO
A BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND.
JULY i8, 1778
? ? ? ? NO T E.
THIS Letter is addressed to Mr. Pery, (afterwards Lord Pery,)
then Speaker of the House of Commons of Ireland. It appears,
there had been much correspondence between that gentleman and
Mr. Burke, on the subject of heads of a bill (which had passed
the Irish House of Commons in the summer of the year 1778,
and had been transmitted by the Irish Privy Council of [to? ]
England) for the relief of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects
in Ireland. The bill contained a clause for exempting the Protestant Dissenters of Ireland from the sacramental test, which created a strong objection to the whole measure on the part of
the English government. Mr. Burke employed his most strenuous efforts to remove the prejudice which the king's ministers entertained against the clause, but the bill was ultimately returned without it, and in that shape passed the Irish Parliament. (17th and 18th Geo. III. cap. 49. ) In the subsequent session,
however, a separate act was passed for the relief of the Protestant Dissenters of Ireland.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
Y DEAR SIR, --I received in due course your
two very interesting and judicious letters,
which gave me many new lights, and excited me to
fresh activity in the important subject they related
to. However, from that time I have not been perfectly free from doubt and uneasiness. I used a liberty with those letters, which, perhaps, nothing can thoroughly justify, and which certainly nothing but
the delicacy of the crisis, the clearness of my intentions, and your great good-nature can at all excuse.
I might conceal this from you; but I think it better
to lay the whole matter before you, and submit myself to your mercy, - assuring you, at the same time,
that, if you are so kind as to continue your confidence
on this, or to renew it upon any other occasion, I
shall never be tempted again to make so bold and
unauthorized an use of the trust you place in me. I
will state to you the history of the business since
my last, and then you will see how far I am excusable
by the circumstances.
On the 3rd of July I received a letter from the
Attorney-General, dated the day before, in which, in
a very open and obliging manner, he desires my
thoughts of the Irish Toleration Bill, and particularly of the Dissenters' clause. I gave them to him, by
the return of the post, at large; but, as the time
pressed, 1 kept no copy of the letter. The general
? ? ? ? 200 LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY.
drift was strongly to recommend the whole, and principally to obviate the objections to the part that related to the Dissenters, with regard both to the general propriety and to the temporary policy at this juncture. I took, likewise, a good deal of pains to
state the difference which had always subsisted with
regard to the treatment of the Protestant Dissenters
in Ireland and in England, and what I conceived the
reason of that difference to be. About the same time
I was called to town for a day; and I took an opportunity, in Westminster Hall, of urging the same points,
with all the force I was master of, to the SolicitorGeneral. I attempted to see the Chancellor for the
same purpose, but was not fortunate enough to meet
him at home. Soon after my return hither, on Tuesday, I received a very polite and I may say friendly
letter from him, wishing me (on supposition that I
had continued in town) to dine with him as [on? ]
that day, in order to talk over the business of the Toleration Act, then before him. Unluckily I had company with me, and was not able to leave them until
Thursday, when I went to town and called at his
house, but missed him. However, in answer to his
letter, I had before, and instantly on the receipt of it,
written to him at large, and urged such topics, both
with regard to the Catholics and Dissenters, as I imagined were the most likely to be prevalent with him.
This letter I followed to town on Thursday. On my
arrival I was much alarmed with a report that the
ministry had thoughts of rejecting the whole bill.
Mr. M'Namara seemed apprehensive that it was a
determined measure; and there seemed to be but too
much reason for his fears.
Not having met the Chancellor at home, either on
? ? ? ? LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY. 201
my first visit or my second after receiving his letter,
and fearful that the Cabinet should come to some unpleasant resolution, I went to the Treasury on Friday. There I saw Sir G. Cooper. I possessed him of. the
danger of a partial, and the inevitable mischief of
the total rejection of the bill. I reminded him of the
understood compact between parties, upon which
the whole scheme of the toleration originating in
the English bill was formed,- of the fair part
which the Whigs had acted in a business which,
though first started by them, was supposed equally
acceptable to all sides, and the risk of which they
took upon themselves, when others declined it. To
this I added such matter as I thought most fit to engage government, as government, - not to sport with a singular opportunity which offered for the union of
every description of men amongst us in support of
the common interest of the whole; and I ended by
desiring to see Lord North upon the subject. Sir
Grey Cooper showed a very right sense of the matter,
and in a few minutes after our conversation I went
down from the Treasury chambers to Lord North's
house. I had a great deal of discourse with him.
He told me that his ideas of toleration were large, but
that, large as they were, they did not comprehend a
promiscuous establishment, even in matters merely
civil; that he thought the established religion ought
to be the religion of the state; that, in this idea, he
was not for the repeal of the sacramental test; that,
indeed, he knew the Dissenters in general did not
greatly scruple it; but that very want of scruple
showed less zeal against the Establishment; and, after all, there could no provision be made by human laws against those who made light of the tests which
? ? ? ? 202 LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY.
were formed to discriminate opinions. On all this he
spoke with a good deal of temper. He did not, indeed, seem to think the test itself, which was rightly
considered by Dissenters as in a manner dispensed
with by an annual act of Parliament, and which in
Ireland was of a late origin, and of much less extent
than here, a matter of much moment. The thing
which seemed to affect him most was the offence that
would be taken at the repeal by the leaders among
the Church clergy here, on one hand, and, on the
other, the steps which would be taken for its repeal in
England in the next session, in consequence of the
repeal in Ireland. I assured him, with great truth,
that we had no idea among the Whigs of moving the
repeal of the test. I confessed very fieely, for my
own part, that, if it were brought in, I should certainly vote for it; but that I should neither use, nor did
I think applicable, any arguments drawn from the
analogy of what was done in other parts of the British dominions. We did not argue from analogy,
even in this island and United Kingdom. Presbytery
was established in Scotland. It became no reason
either for its religious or civil establishment here.
In New England the Independent Congregational
Churches had an established legal maintenance;
whilst that country continued part of the British empire, no argument in favor of Independency was adduced from the practice of New England. Government itself lately thought fit to establish the Roman Catholic religion in Canada; but they would not suffer an argument of analogy to be used for its establishment anywhere else. These things were governed,
as all things of that nature are governed, not by general maxims, but their own local and peculiar cir
? ? ? ? LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY. 203
cumstances. Finding, however, that, though he was
very cool and patient, I made no great way in the
business of the Dissenters, I turned myself to try
whether, falling in with his maxims, some modification
might not be found, the hint of which I received from
your letter relative to the Irish Militia Bill, and the
point I labored was so to alter the clause as to repeal
the test quoad military and revenue offices: for these
being only subservient parts in the economy and execution, rather than the administration of affairs, the
politic, civil, and judicial parts would still continue
in the hands of the conformists to religious establishments. Without giving any hopes, he, however, said
that this distinction deserved to be considered. After
this, I strongly pressed the mischief of rejecting the
whole bill: that a notion went abroad, that government was not at this moment very well pleased with
the Dissenters, as not very well affected to the monarchy; that, in general, I conceived this to be a mistake,- but if it were not, the rejection of a bill in favor of others, because something in favor of them
was inserted, instead of humbling and mortifying,
would infinitely exalt them: for, if the legislature
had no means of favoring those whom they meant
to favor, as long as the Dissenters could find means
to get themselves included, this would make them,
instead of their only being subject to restraint themselves, the arbitrators of the fate of others, and that
not so much by their own strength (which could not
be prevented in its operation) as by the cooperation
of those whom they opposed. In the comnclusion, I
recommended, that, if they wished well to the measure which was the main object of the bill, they must
explicitly make it their own, and stake themselves
? ? ? ? 204 LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY.
upon it; that hitherto all their difficulties had arisen
from their indecision and their wrong measures; and
to make Lord North sensible of the necessity of giving a firm support to some part of the bill, and to add weighty authority to my reasons, I read him your letter of the 10th of July. It seemed, in some measure, to answer the purpose which I intended. I pressed
the necessity of the management of the affair, both
as to conduct and as to gaining of men; and I renewed my former advice, that the Lord Lieutenant should be instructed to consult and cooperate with
you in the whole affair. All this was, apparently,
very fairly taken.
In the evening of that day I saw the Lord Chancellor. With him, too, I had much discourse. You
know that he is intelligent, sagacious, systematic, and
determined. At first he seemed of opinion that the
relief contained in the bill was so inadequate to the
mass of oppression it was intended to remove, that it
would be better to let it stand over, until a more perfect and better digested plan could be settled. This seemed to possess him very strongly. In order to
combat this notion, and to show that the bill, all
things considered, was a very great acquisition, and
that it was rather a preliminary than an obstruction
to relief, I ventured to show him your letter. It had
its effect. He declared himself roundly against giving anything to a confederacy, real or apparent, to distress government; that, if anything was done for
Catholics or Dissenters, it should be done on its own
separate merits, and not by way of bargain and compromise; that they sliould be each of them obliged to government, not eachl to the other; that this would
be a perpetual nursery of faction. In a word, he
? ? ? ? LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY. 205
seemed so determined on not uniting these plans,
that all I could say, and I said everything I could
think of, was to no purpose. But when I insisted
on the disgrace to government which must arise from
their rejecting a proposition recommended by themselves, because their opposers had made a mixture, separable too by themselves, I was better heard. On
the whole, I found him well disposed.
As soon as I had returned to the country, this affair lay so much on my mind, and the absolute necessity of government's making a serious business of it, agreeably to the seriousness they professed, and the
object required, that I wrote to Sir G. Cooper, to remind him of the principles upon which we went in
our conversation, and to press the plan which was
suggested for carrying them into execution. He
wrote to me on the 20th, and assured me, "that
Lord North had given all due attention and respect
to what you said to him on Friday, and will pay the
same respect to the sentiments conveyed in your
letter: everything you say or write on the subject
undoubtedly demands it. " Whether this was mere
civility, or showed anything effectual in their intentions, time and the success of this measure will show.
It is wholly with them; and if it should fail, you are
a witness that nothing on our part has been wanting
to free so large a part of our fellow-subjects and fellow-citizens from slavery, and to free government from
the weakness and danger of ruling them by force. As
to my own particular part, the desire of doing this
has betrayed me into a step which I cannot perfectly
reconcile to myself. You are to judge how far, on
the circumstances, it may be excused. I think it had
a good effect. You may be assured that I made this
? ? ? ? ~206 LETTER TO RIGHT HON. EDMUND S. PERY. communication in a manner effectually to exclude so false and groundless an idea as that I confer with you, any more than I confer with them, on any party principle whatsoever, - or that in this affair we look further than the measure which is in profession, and I am sure ought to be in reason, theirs.
I am ever, with the sincerest affection and esteem, My dear Sir,
Your most faithful and obedient humble servant, EDMUND BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, 18th July, 1778.
I intended to have written sooner, but it has not been in my power.
To the Speaker of the House of Commons of Ireland.
? ? ? ? TWO LETTERS
TO
THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. , AND
JOHN MERLOTT, ESQ. ,
IN VINDICATION OF HIS PARLIAMENTARY CONDUCT RELATIVE TO THE AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
I78o.
? ? ? ? LET T E R
TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. *
Y DEAR SIR, --I do not know in what malnner I am to thank you properly for the very
friendly solicitude you have been so good as to express for my reputation. The concern you have done
me the honor to take in my affairs will be an ample
indemnity from all that I may suffer from the rapid
judgments of those who choose to form their opinions of men, not from the life, but from their portraits in a newspaper.
I confess to you that my frame
of mind is so constructed, I have in me so little of
the constitution of a great man, that I am more gratified with a very moderate share of approbation from
those few who know me than I should be with the
most clamorous applause from those multitudes who
love to admire at a due distance.
I am not, however, Stoic enough to be able to affirm with truth, or hypocrite enough affectedly to
pretend, that I am wholly unmoved at the difficulty
* Mr. Thomas Burgh, of Old Town, was a member of the House
of Commons in Ireland. -It appears from a letter written by this
gentleman to Mr. Burke, December 24, 1779, and to which the following is an answer, that the part Mr. Burke had taken in the discussion which the affairs of Ireland had undergone in the preceding sessions of Parliamcnt in England had been grossly misrepresented,
and much censured in Ireland.
VOL. VI. 14
? ? ? ? 210 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
which you and others of my friends in Ireland have
found in vindicating my conduct towards my native
country. It undoubtedly hurts me in some degree:
but the wound is not very deep. If I had sought
popularity in Ireland, when, in the cause of that
country, I was ready to sacrifice, and did sacrifice,
a much nearer, a much more immediate, and a much
more advantageous popularity here, I should find
myself perfectly unhappy, because I should be totally disappointed in my expectations, -because I
should discover, when it was too late, what common sense might have told me very early, that I
risked the capital of my fame in the most disadvantageous lottery in the world. But I acted then, as I
act now, and as I hope. I shall act always, from a
strong impulse of right, and from motives in which
popularity, either here or there, has but a very little
part.
With the support of that consciousness I can bear
a good deal of the coquetry of public opinion, which
has her caprices, anid must have her way. 1iseri,
quibus intentata nitet! I, too, have had my holiday
of popularity in Ireland. I have even heard of an
intention to erect a statue. * I believe my intimate
acquaintance know how little that idea was encouraged by me; and I was sincerely glad that it never
took effect. Such hlonors belong exclusively to the
tomb, -the natural and only period of human inconstancy, with regard either to desert or to opinion: for
they are the very same hands which erect, that very
frequently (and sometimes with reason enough) pluck
down the statue. Had such an unmerited and un* This intention was communicated to Mr. Burke in a letter from Mr. Pery, the Speaker of tlhe House of Commons in Ireland.
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 211
looked-for compliment been paid to me two years
ago, the fragments of the piece might at this hour
have the advantage of seeing actual service, while
they were moving, according to the law of projectiles, to the windows of the Attorney-General, or of
my old friend, Monk Mason.
To speak seriously, -- let me assure you, my dear
Sir, that, though I am not permitted to rejoice at all
its effects, there is not one man on your side of the
water more pleased to see the situation of Ireland so
prosperous as that she can afford to throw away her
friends. She has obtained, solely by her own efforts,
the fruits of a great victory, which I am very ready
to allow that the best efforts of her best well-wishers
here could not have done for her so effectually in a
great number of years, and perhaps could not have
done at all. I could wish, however, merely for the
sake of her own dignity, that, in turning her poor relations and antiquated friends out of doors, (though
one of the most common effects of new prosperity,)
she had thought proper to dismiss us with fewer tokens of unkindness. It is true that there is no sort
of danger in affronting men who are not of importance enough to have any trust of mninisterial, of
royal, or of national honor to surrender. The unforced and unbought services of humble men, who
have no medium of influence in great assemblies, but
through the precarious force of reason, must be looked
upon with contempt by those who by their wisdom and
spirit have improved the critical moment of their fortune, and have debated with authority against pusillanimous dissent and ungracious compliance, at the head of forty thousand men.
Such feeble auxiliaries (as I talk of) to such a
? ? ? ? 212 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
force, employed against such resistance, I must own,
in the present moment, very little worthy of your attention. Yet, if one were to look forward, it scarcely
seems altogether politic to bestow so much liberality
of invective on the Whigs of this kingdom as I find
has been the fashion to do both in and out of Parliament, That you should pay compliments, in some
tone or other, whether ironical or serious, to the milnister from whose imbecility you have extorted what
you could never obtain fiom his bounty, is not unnatural. In the first effusions of Parliamentary gratitude to that minister for the early and voluntary
benefits he has conferred upon Ireland, it might appear that you were wanting to the triumph of his surrender, if you did not lead some of his enemies captive before him. Neither could you feast him with decorum, if his particular taste were not consulted.
A minister, who has never defended his measures
in any other way than by railing at his adversaries,
cannot have his palate made all at once to the relish of positive commendation. I cannot deny but
that on this occasion there was displayed a great
deal of the good-breeding which consists in the accommodation of the entertainment to the relish of
the guest.
But that ceremony being past, it would not be unworthy of the wisdom of Ireland to consider what consequences the extinguishing every spark of freedom
in this country may have upon your own liberties.
You. are at this instant flushed with victory, and full
of the confidence natural to recent and untried power. We are in a temper equally natural, though very
different. We feel as men do, who, having placed an
unbounded reliance on their force, have found it to
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 213
tally to fail on trial. We feel faint and heartless, and
without the smallest degree of self-opinion. In plain
words, we are cowed. When men give up their violence and injustice without a struggle, their condition
is next to desperate. When no art, no management,
lno argument, is necessary to abate their pride and
overcome their prejudices, and their uneasiness only
excites an obscure and feeble rattling in their throat,
their final dissolution seems not far off. Iln this miserable state we are still fuirther depressed by the overbearing influence of the crown. It acts with the officious cruelty of a mercenary nurse, who, under
pretence of tenderness, stifles us with our clothes,
and plucks the pillow from our heads. Injectu muzlte
vestis opprinmi senem jubet. Under this influence we
have so little will of our own, that, even in any apparent activity we may be got to assume, I may say,
without ainy violence to sense, and with very little to
language, we are merely passive. We have yielded
to your demands this session. In the last session we
refused to prevent them. In both cases, the passive
and the active, our principle was the same. Had the
crown pleased to retain the spirit, with regard to Ireland, which seems to be now all directed to America,
we should have neglected our own immediate defence,
and sent over the last man of our militia to fight with
the last man of your volunteers.
To this influence the principle of action, the principle of policy, and the principle of union of the present minority are opposed. These principles of the opposition are the only thing which preserves a single symptom of life in the nation. That opposition
is composed of the far greater part of the independent property and independent rank of the kingdom,
? ? ? ? 214 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
of whatever is most untainted in character, and of
whatever ability remains unextinguished in the people, and of all which tends to draw the attention of
foreign countries upon this. It is now ill its final
and conclusive struggle. It has to struggle against
a force to which, I am afraid, it is not equal. The
whole kingdom of Scotland ranges with the venal,
the unprincipled, and the wrong-principled of this;
and if the kingdom of Ireland thinks proper to pass
into the same camp, we shall certainly be obliged to
quit the field. In that case, if I know anything of
this country, another constitutional opposition can
never be formed in it; and if this be impossible, it
will be at least as much so (if there can be degrees
in impossibility) to have a constitutional administration at any future time. The possibility of the
former is the only security for the existence of the
latter. Whether the present administration be in
the least like one, I must venture to doubt, even in
the honey-moon of the Irish fondness to Lord North,
which has succeeded to all their slappings and scratchings.
If liberty cannot maintain its ground in this kingdom, I am sure that it cannot have any long continuance in yours. Our liberty might now and then jar and strike a discord with that of Ireland. The
thing is possible: but still the instruments might
play in concert. But if ours be unstrung, yours
will be hung up on a peg, and both will be mute
forever. Your new military force may give you confidence, and it serves well for a turn; but you and
I know that it has not root. It is not perennial, and
would prove but a poor shelter for your liberty, when
this nation, having no interest in its own, could look
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 215
upon yours with the eye of envy and disgust. I
cannot, therefore, help thinking, and telling you
what with great submission I think, that, if the Parliament of Ireland be so jealous of the spirit of our common Constitution as she seems to be, it was not
so discreet to mix with the panegyric on the minister so large a portion of acrimony to the independent part of this nation. You never received any sort
of injury from them, aild you are grown to that
degree of importance that the discourses in your
Parliament will have a much greater effect on our
immediate fortune than our conversation can have
upon yours. In the end they will seriously affect
both.
I have looked back upon our conduct and our
public conversations in order to discover what it is
that can have given you offence. I have done so,
because I am ready to admit that to offend you without any cause would be as contrary to true policy
as I am sure it must be to the inclinations of almost
every one of us. About two years ago Lord Nugent
moved six propositions in favor of Ireland in the
House of Commons. At the time of the motions,
and during the debate, Lord North was either wholly out of the House, or engaged in other matters
of business or pleasantry, in the remotest recesses of
the West Saxon corner. He took no part whatsoever in the affair; but it was supposed his neutrality
was more inclined towards the side of favor. The
mover being a person in office was, however,. the
only indication that was given of such a leaning.
We who supported the propositions, finding them better relished than at first we looked for, pursued our advantage, and began to open a way for more essen
? ? ? ? 216 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
tial benefits to Ireland. On the other hand, those
who had hitherto opposed them in vain redoubled
their efforts, and became exceedingly clamorous.
Then it was that Lord North found it necessary to
come out of his fastness, and to interpose between
the contending parties. In this character of mediator, he declared, that, if anything beyond the first
six resolutions should be attempted, he would oppose
the whole, but that, if we rested there, the original
motions should have his support. On this a sort of
convention took place between him and the managers of the Irish business, in which the six resolutions were to be considered as an uti possidetis, and to be held sacred.
By this time other parties began to appear. A
good many of the trading towns, and manufactures of
various kinds, took the alarm. Petitions crowded in.
upon one another, and the bar was occupied by a
formidable body of council. Lord N. was staggered
by this new battery. He is not of a constitution to
encounter such an opposition as had then risen, when
there were no other objects in view than those that
were then before the House. In order not to lose
him, we were obliged to abandon, bit by bit, the most
considerable part of the original agreement.
In several parts, however, he continued fair and
firm. For my own part, I acted, as I trust I comlmonly do, with decision. I saw very well that the
things we had got were of no great consideration;
but they were, even in their defects, somewhat leading. I was in hopes that we might obtain graduallly and by parts what we might attempt at once and in the whole without success, --that one concession
would lead to another,- and that the people of Eng
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 217
land discovering by a progressive experience that none
of the concessions actually made were followed by the
consequences they had dreaded, their fears from what
they were yet to yield would considerably diminish.
But that to which I attached myself the most particularly was, to fix the principle of a free trade in all
the ports of these islands, as founded in justice, and
beneficial to the whole, but principally to this, the seat
of the supreme power. And this I labored to the
utmost of my might, upon general principles, illustrated by all the commercial detail with which my little inquiries in life were able to furnish me. I ought to forget such trifling things as those, with all concerning myself; and possibly I might have forgotten
them, if the Lord Advocate of Scotland had not, in a
very flattering manner, revived them in my memory,
in a full House in this session. He told me that my
arguments, such as they were, had made him, at the
period I allude to, change the opinion with which he
had come into the House strongly impressed. I am
sure that at the time at least twenty more told me
the same thing. I certainly ought not to take their
style of compliment as a testimony to fact; neither
do I. But all this showed sufficiently, not what they
thought of my ability, but what they saw of my zeal.
I could say more in proof of the effects of that zeal,
and of the unceasing industry with which I then acted, both in my endeavors which were apparent and
those that were not so visible. Let it be remembered
that I showed those dispositions while the Parliament
of England was in a capacity to deliberate and in a
situation to refuse, when there was something to be
risked here by being suspected of a partiality to Ireland, when there was an honorable danger attending
? ? ? ? 218 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
the profession of fiiendship to you, which heightened
its relish, and made it worthy of a reception in manly minds. But as for the awkward and nauseous parade of debate without opposition, the flimsy device
of tricking out necessity and disguising it in the habit of choice, the shallow stratagem of defendinlg by argument what all the world must perceive is yielded
to force, - these are a sort of acts of friendship whiclh
I am sorry that any of my countrymen should require
of their real friends. They are things not to my taste;
and if they are looked upon as tests of friendship, I
desire for one that I may be considered as an eniemy.
What party purpose did my conduct answer at
that time? I acted with Lord N. I went to all the
ministerial meetings, - and lie and his associates in
office will do me the justice to say, that, aiming at the
concord of the empire, I made it my business to give
his concessions all the value of which they were capable, whilst some of those who were covered with his favors derogated from them, treated them with contempt, and openly threatened to oppose them. If I had acted with my dearest and most valued friends,
if I had acted with time Marquis of Rockingham or
the Duke of Richmond, in that situation, I could not
have attended more to their honlor, or endeavored
more earnestly to give efficacy to the measures I had
taken in common with them. The return which I,
and all who acted as I did, have met with from him,
does not make me repent the conduct which I then
held.
As to the rest of the gentlemen with whom I have
the honor to act, they did not then, or at anly other
time, make a party affair of Irish politics. That
nlatter was always taken up without concert; but,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 219
in general, from the operation of our known liberal
principles in government, in commerce, in religion,
in everything, it was taken up favorably for Ireland.
Where some local interests bore hard upon the inembers, they acted oin the sense of their constituents, upon ideas which, though I do not always follow,
I cannot blame. However, two or three persons,
high in opposition, and high in public esteem, ran
great risks in their boroughs on that occasion. But
all this was without anly particular plan. I need
not say, that Ireland was in that affair much obliged
to the liberal mind and enlarged understanding of
Charles Fox, to Mr. Thomas Townshend, to Lord
Midleton, and others. On reviewing that affair,
which gave rise to all the subsequent manlleuvres,
I am convinced that the whole of what has this day
been done might have then been effected. But then
the minister must have taken it up as a great plan
of national policy, and paid with his person in every
lodgment of his approach. He must have used that
influence to quiet prejudice, which he has so often
used to corrupt principle: and I know, that, if he
had, he must have succeeded. Many of the most
active in opposition would have given him an unequivocal support. The corporation of London, and
the great body of the London West India merchants
and planters, which forms the greatest mass of that
vast interest, were disposed to fall in with such a
plan. They certainly gave no sort of discountenance
to what was done or what was proposed. But these
are not the kind of objects for which our ministers
bring out the heavy artillery of the state. Therefore, as things stood at that time, a great deal more
was not practicable.
? ? ? ? 220 LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ.
Last year another proposition was brought out for
the relief of Ireland. . It was started without any
communication with a single person of activity in
the country party, and, as it should seem, without
any kind of concert with government. It appeared
to me extremely raw and undigested. The behavior of Lord N. , on the opening of that business,
was the exact transcript of his conduct on the Irish
question in the former session. It was a mode of
proceeding which his nature has wrought into the
texture of his politics, and which is inseparable from
them. He chose to absent himself on the proposition and during the agitation of that business,although the business of the House is that alone for which he has any kind of relish, or, as I am
told, can be persuaded to listen to with any degree
of attention. But he was willing to let it take its
course. If it should pass without any considerable
difficulty, he would bring his acquiescence to tell
for merit in Ireland, and he would have the credit,
out of his indolence, of giving quiet to that couintry. If difficulties should arise on the part of England, he knew that the House was so well trained that he might at his pleasure call us off from the
hottest scent. As he acted in his usual manner and
upon his usual principle, opposition acted upon theirs,
and rather generally supported the measure. As to
myself, I expressed a disapprobation at the practice
of bringing imperfect and indigested projects into the
House, before means were used to quiet the clamors which a misconception of what we were doing
might occasion at home, and before measures were
settled with men of weiglht and autlhority in Ireland,
in order to render our acts useful and acceptable
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THOMAS BURGH, ESQ. 221
to that country. I said, that the only thing which
could make the influence of the crown (enormous
without as well as within the House) in any degree
tolerable was, that it might be employed to give
something of order and system to the proceedings
of a popular assembly; that government being so
situated as to have a large range of prospect, and
as it were a bird's-eye view of everything, they might
see distant dangers and distant advantages which
were not so visible to those who stood onl the common level; they might, besides, observe them, from this advantage, in their relative and combined state,
which people locally instructed and partially informed
could behold only in an insulated and unconnected
manner; -but that for many years past we suffered
under all the evils, without any one of the advantages of a government influence; that the business
of' a minister, or of those who acted as such, had
been still further to contract the narrowness of men'S;
ideas, to confirm inveterate prejudices, to inflame
vulgar passions, and to abet all sorts of popular
absurdities, in order the better to destroy popular
rights and privileges; that, so far from methodizing
the business of the House, they had let all things
run into an inextricable confusion, and had left affairs of the most delicate policy wholly to chance. After I had expressed myself with the warmth I
felt on seeing all government and order buried under
the ruins of liberty, and after 1 had made my protest
against the insufficiency of the propositions, I supported the principle of enlargement at which they aimed, though short and somewlhat wide of the mark,
g- iving, as my sole reason, that the more frequently these matters came into discussion, the more it
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