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diff --git a/4063-0.txt b/4063-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1898a55 --- /dev/null +++ b/4063-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5031 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Peter Plymley's Letters, by Sydney Smith, +Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Peter Plymley's Letters + and Selected Essays + + +Author: Sydney Smith + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: September 8, 2014 [eBook #4063] +[This file was first posted on 29 October 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER PLYMLEY'S LETTERS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY + + * * * * * + + + + + + PETER PLYMLEY’S LETTERS + AND + SELECTED ESSAYS + + + * * * * * + + BY + SYDNEY SMITH + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + CASSELL & COMPANY LIMITED + _LONDON PARIS & MELBOURNE_ + 1893 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +SYDNEY SMITH, of the same age as Walter Scott, was born at Woodford, in +Essex, in the year 1771, and he died of heart disease, aged seventy-four, +on the 22nd of February, 1845. His father was a clever man of wandering +habits who, when he settled in England, reduced his means by buying, +altering, spoiling, and then selling about nineteen different places in +England. His mother was of a French family from Languedoc, that had been +driven to England by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Sydney +Smith’s grandfather, upon the mother’s side, could speak no English, and +he himself ascribed some of his gaiety to the French blood in his veins. + +He was one of four sons. His eldest brother Robert—known as Bobus—was +sent to Eton, where he joined Canning, Frere, and John Smith, in writing +the Eton magazine, the _Microcosm_; and at Cambridge Bobus afterwards was +known as a fine Latin scholar. Sydney Smith went first to a school at +Southampton, and then to Winchester, where he became captain of the +school. Then he was sent for six months to Normandy for a last polish to +his French before he went on to New College, Oxford. When he had +obtained his fellowship there, his father left him to his own resources. +His eldest brother had been trained for the bar, his two younger brothers +were sent out to India, and Sydney, against his own wish, yielded to the +strong desire of his father that he should take orders as a clergyman. +Accordingly, in 1794, he became curate of the small parish of +Netherhaven, in Wiltshire. Meat came to Netherhaven only once a week in +a butcher’s cart from Salisbury, and the curate often dined upon potatoes +flavoured with ketchup. + +The only educated neighbour was Mr. Hicks Beach, the squire, who at first +formally invited the curate to dinner on Sundays, and soon found his wit, +sense, and high culture so delightful, that the acquaintance ripened into +friendship. After two years in the curacy, Sydney Smith gave it up and +went abroad with the squire’s son. “When first I went into the Church,” +he wrote afterwards, “I had a curacy in the middle of Salisbury Plain; +the parish was Netherhaven, near Amesbury. The squire of the parish, Mr. +Beach, took a fancy to me, and after I had served it two years, he +engaged me as tutor to his eldest son, and it was arranged that I and his +son should proceed to the University of Weimar in Saxony. We set out, +but before reaching our destination Germany was disturbed by war, and, in +stress of politics, we put into Edinburgh, where I remained five years.” + +Young Michael Beach, who had little taste for study, lived with Sydney +Smith as his tutor, and found him a wise guide and pleasant friend. When +Michael went to the University, his brother William was placed under the +same good care. Sydney Smith, about the same time, went to London to be +married. His wife’s rich brother quarrelled with her for marrying a man +who said that his only fortune consisted in six small silver teaspoons. +One day after their happy marriage he ran in to his wife and threw them +in her lap, saying, “There, Kate, you lucky girl, I give you all my +fortune!” The lucky girl had a small fortune of her own which her +husband had strictly secured to herself and her children. Mr. Beach +recognised the value of Sydney Smith’s influence over his son by a +wedding gift of £750. In 1802 a daughter was born, and in the same year +Sydney Smith joined Francis Jeffrey and other friends, who then +maintained credit for Edinburgh as the Modern Athens, in the founding of +_The Edinburgh Review_, to which the papers in this volume, added to the +Peter Plymley Letters, were contributed. The Rev. Sydney Smith preached +sometimes in the Episcopal Church at Edinburgh, and presently had, in +addition to William Beach, a son of Mr. Gordon, of Ellon Castle, placed +under his care, receiving £400 a year for each of the young men. + +In 1803 Sydney Smith left Edinburgh for London, where he wrote busily in +_The Edinburgh Review_, but remained poor for many years. His wit +brought friends, and the marriage of his eldest brother with Lord +Holland’s aunt quickened the growth of a strong friendship with Lord +Holland. Through the good offices of Lord Holland, Sydney Smith +obtained, in 1806, aged thirty-five, the living of Foston-le-Clay, in +Yorkshire. In the next year appeared the first letter of Peter Plymley +to his brother Abraham on the subject of the Irish Catholics. + +These letters fell, we are told, like sparks on a heap of gunpowder. All +London, and soon all England, was alive to the sound reason recommended +by a lively wit. Sydney Smith lived to be recognised as first among the +social wits, and it was always the chief praise of his wit that wisdom +was the soul of it. Peter Plymley’s letters, and Sydney Smith’s articles +on the same subject in _The Edinburgh Review_ were the most powerful aids +furnished by the pen to the solution of the burning question of their +time. Lord Murray called the Plymley letters “after Pascal’s letters the +most instructive piece of wisdom in the form of irony ever written.” +Worldly wealth came later; but in wit, wisdom, and kindly helpful +cheerfulness, from youth to age, Sydney Smith’s life was rich. + + H. M. + + + + +LETTERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CATHOLICS. + + + TO + MY BROTHER ABRAHAM, + WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY. + BY PETER PLYMLEY. + + + +LETTER I. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—A worthier and better man than yourself does not exist; but +I have always told you, from the time of our boyhood, that you were a bit +of a goose. Your parochial affairs are governed with exemplary order and +regularity; you are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval is in the +House of Commons,—and, I must say, with much more reason; nor do I know +any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation are so +clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher. There is +another point, upon which I will do you ample justice; and that is, that +the eyes so directed towards you are wide open; for the rustic has, in +general, good principles, though he cannot control his animal habits; +and, however loud he may snore, his face is perpetually turned towards +the fountain of orthodoxy. + +Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according to our +ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my opinions about the +Catholics, and to reply to yours. + +In the first place, my sweet Abraham, the Pope is not landed—nor are +there any curates sent out after him—nor has he been hid at St. Albans by +the Dowager Lady Spencer—nor dined privately at Holland House—nor been +seen near Dropmore. If these fears exist (which I do not believe), they +exist only in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; they emanate +from his zeal for the Protestant interest; and, though they reflect the +highest honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must +certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigour +of his understanding. By this time, however, the best-informed clergy in +the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumour is +without foundation; and though the Pope is probably hovering about our +coast in a fishing-smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to the +vigilance of our cruisers; and it is certain that he has not yet polluted +the Protestantism of our soil. + +Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods seized at +Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be +without the shadow of a foundation; instead of the angels and archangels, +mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden image of +Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham, as a head-piece for the _Spanker_ +gun-vessel; it was an exact resemblance of his Lordship in his military +uniform; and _therefore_ as little like a god as can well be imagined. + +Having set your fears at rest, as to the extent of the conspiracy formed +against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the argument itself. + +You say these men interpret the scriptures in an unorthodox manner, and +that they eat their god.—Very likely. All this may seem very important +to you, who live fourteen miles from a market-town, and, from long +residence upon your living, are become a kind of holy vegetable; and in a +theological sense it is highly important. But I want soldiers and +sailors for the state; I want to make a greater use than I now can do of +a poor country full of men; I want to render the military service popular +among the Irish; to check the power of France; to make every possible +exertion for the safety of Europe, which in twenty years’ time will be +nothing but a mass of French slaves: and then you, and ten other such +boobies as you, call out—“For God’s sake, do not think of raising cavalry +and infantry in Ireland! . . . They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a +different manner from what we do! . . . They eat a bit of wafer every +Sunday, which they call their God!” . . . I wish to my soul they would +eat you, and such reasoners as you are. What! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, +Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this country; +when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious persuasion; when +the population of half the globe is up in arms against us; are we to +stand examining our generals and armies as a bishop examines a candidate +for holy orders; and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not +agree with you about the second of Timothy? You talk about the +Catholics! If you and your brotherhood have been able to persuade the +country into a continuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have +ten times the power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best +days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought of +preventing the Protestants from fighting his battles; and gained +accordingly some of his most splendid victories by the talents of his +Protestant generals. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever +thought for these hundred years past, of asking whether a bayonet is +Catholic, or Presbyterian or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and +well-tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule; for he begins to +think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment of this +pleasure, from one extremity of Europe to the other. + +I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you +can be: and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the product +of the earth, nor meddle with the ecclesiastical establishment in any +shape; but what have I to do with the speculative nonsense of his +theology, when the object is to elect the mayor of a county town, or to +appoint a colonel of a marching regiment? Will a man discharge the +solemn impertinences of the one office with less zeal, or shrink from the +bloody boldness of the other with greater timidity, because the blockhead +thinks he can eat angels in muffins and chew a spiritual nature in the +crumpets which he buys from the baker’s shop? I am sorry there should be +such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten times a greater fool +than he is, if I refused, till he had made a solemn protestation that the +crumpet was spiritless and the muffin nothing but a human muffin, to lead +him out against the enemies of the state. Your whole argument is wrong: +the state has nothing whatever to do with theological errors which do not +violate the common rules of morality, and militate against the fair power +of the ruler: it leaves all these errors to you, and to such as you. You +have every tenth porker in your parish for refuting them; and take care +that you are vigilant and logical in the task. + +I love the Church as well as you do; but you totally mistake the nature +of an establishment, when you contend that it ought to be connected with +the military and civil career of every individual in the state. It is +quite right that there should be one clergyman to every parish +interpreting the Scriptures after a particular manner, ruled by a regular +hierarchy, and paid with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheatsheafs. +When I have laid this foundation for a rational religion in the +state—when I have placed ten thousand well-educated men in different +parts of the kingdom to preach it up, and compelled everybody to pay +them, whether they hear them or not—I have taken such measures as I know +must always procure an immense majority in favour of the Established +Church; but I can go no further. I cannot set up a civil inquisition, +and say to one, you shall not be a butcher, because you are not orthodox; +and prohibit another from brewing, and a third from administering the +law, and a fourth from defending the country. If common justice did not +prohibit me from such a conduct, common sense would. The advantage to be +gained by quitting the heresy would make it shameful to abandon it; and +men who had once left the Church would continue in such a state of +alienation from a point of honour, and transmit that spirit to their +latest posterity. This is just the effect your disqualifying laws have +produced. They have fed Dr. Rees, and Dr. Kippis; crowded the +congregations of the Old Jewry to suffocation: and enabled every +sublapsarian, and superlapsarian, and semi-pelagian clergyman, to build +himself a neat brick chapel, and live with some distant resemblance to +the state of a gentleman. + +You say the King’s coronation oath will not allow him to consent to any +relaxation of the Catholic laws.—Why not relax the Catholic laws as well +as the laws against Protestant dissenters? If one is contrary to his +oath, the other must be so too; for the spirit of the oath is, to defend +the Church establishment, which the Quaker and the Presbyterian differ +from as much or more than the Catholic; and yet his Majesty has repealed +the Corporation and Test Act in Ireland, and done more for the Catholics +of both kingdoms than had been done for them since the Reformation. In +1778 the ministers said nothing about the royal conscience; in 1793 no +conscience; in 1804 no conscience; the common feeling of humanity and +justice then seem to have had their fullest influence upon the advisers +of the Crown; but in 1807—a year, I suppose, eminently fruitful in moral +and religious scruples (as some years are fruitful in apples, some in +hops),—it is contended by the well-paid John Bowles, and by Mr. Perceval +(who tried to be well paid), that this is now perjury which we had +hitherto called policy and benevolence. Religious liberty has never made +such a stride as under the reign of his present Majesty; nor is there any +instance in the annals of our history, where so many infamous and +damnable laws have been repealed as those against the Catholics which +have been put an end to by him; and then, at the close of this useful +policy, his advisers discover that the very measures of concession and +indulgence, or (to use my own language) the measures of justice, which he +has been pursuing through the whole of his reign, are contrary to the +oath he takes at its commencement! That oath binds his Majesty not to +consent to any measure contrary to the interest of the Established +Church; but who is to judge of the tendency of each particular measure? +Not the King alone: it can never be the intention of this law that the +King, who listens to the advice of his Parliament upon a read bill, +should reject it upon the most important of all measures. Whatever be +his own private judgment of the tendency of any ecclesiastical bill, he +complies most strictly with his oath, if he is guided in that particular +point by the advice of his Parliament, who may be presumed to understand +its tendency better than the King, or any other individual. You say, if +Parliament had been unanimous in their opinion of the absolute necessity +for Lord Howick’s bill, and the King had thought it pernicious, he would +have been perjured if he had not rejected it. I say, on the contrary, +his Majesty would have acted in the most conscientious manner, and have +complied most scrupulously with his oath, if he had sacrificed his own +opinion to the opinion of the great council of the nation; because the +probability was that such opinion was better than his own; and upon the +same principle, in common life, you give up your opinion to your +physician, your lawyer, and your builder. + +You admit this bill did not compel the King to elect Catholic officers, +but only gave him the option of doing so if he pleased; but you add, that +the King was right in not trusting such dangerous power to himself or his +successors. Now you are either to suppose that the King for the time +being has a zeal for the Catholic establishment, or that he has not. If +he has not, where is the danger of giving such an option? If you suppose +that he may be influenced by such an admiration of the Catholic religion, +why did his present Majesty, in the year 1804, consent to that bill which +empowered the Crown to station ten thousand Catholic soldiers in any part +of the kingdom, and place them absolutely at the disposal of the Crown? +If the King of England for the time being is a good Protestant, there can +be no danger in making the Catholic _eligible_ to anything: if he is not, +no power can possibly be so dangerous as that conveyed by the bill last +quoted; to which, in point of peril, Lord Howick’s bill is a mere joke. +But the real fact is, one bill opened a door to his Majesty’s advisers +for trick, jobbing, and intrigue; the other did not. + +Besides, what folly to talk to me of an oath, which, under all possible +circumstances, is to prevent the relaxation of the Catholic laws! for +such a solemn appeal to God sets all conditions and contingencies at +defiance. Suppose Bonaparte was to retrieve the only very great blunder +he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an +impression upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any thing of the +impediment of a coronation oath? or would the spirit of this country +tolerate for an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of nonsense, if the +most distant prospect existed of conciliating the Catholics by every +species even of the most abject concession? And yet, if your argument is +good for anything, the coronation oath ought to reject, at such a moment, +every tendency to conciliation, and to bind Ireland for ever to the crown +of France. + +I found in your letter the usual remarks about fire, fagot, and bloody +Mary. Are you aware, my dear Priest, that there were as many persons put +to death for religious opinions under the mild Elizabeth as under the +bloody Mary? The reign of the former was, to be sure, ten times as long; +but I only mention the fact, merely to show you that something depends +upon the age in which men live, as well as on their religious opinions. +Three hundred years ago men burnt and hanged each other for these +opinions. Time has softened Catholic as well as Protestant: they both +required it; though each perceives only his own improvement, and is blind +to that of the other. We are all the creatures of circumstances. I know +not a kinder and better man than yourself; but you, if you had lived in +those times, would certainly have roasted your Catholic: and I promise +you, if the first exciter of this religious mob had been as powerful then +as he is now, you would soon have been elevated to the mitre. I do not +go the length of saying that the world has suffered as much from +Protestant as from Catholic persecution; far from it: but you should +remember the Catholics had all the power, when the idea first started up +in the world that there could be two modes of faith; and that it was much +more natural they should attempt to crush this diversity of opinion by +great and cruel efforts, than that the Protestants should rage against +those who differed from them, when the very basis of their system was +complete freedom in all spiritual matters. + +I cannot extend my letter any further at present, but you shall soon hear +from me again. You tell me I am a party man. I hope I shall always be +so, when I see my country in the hands of a pert London joker and a +second-rate lawyer. Of the first, no other good is known than that he +makes pretty Latin verses; the second seems to me to have the head of a +country parson and the tongue of an Old Bailey lawyer. + +If I could see good measures pursued, I care not a farthing who is in +power; but I have a passionate love for common justice, and for common +sense, and I abhor and despise every man who builds up his political +fortune upon their ruin. + +God bless you, reverend Abraham, and defend you from the Pope, and all of +us from that administration who seek power by opposing a measure which +Burke, Pitt, and Fox all considered as absolutely necessary to the +existence of the country. + + + +LETTER II. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—The Catholic not respect an oath! why not? What upon earth +has kept him out of Parliament, or excluded him from all the offices +whence he is excluded, but his respect for oaths? There is no law which +prohibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could be no such law; +because it is impossible to find out what passes in the interior of any +man’s mind. Suppose it were in contemplation to exclude all men from +certain offices who contended for the legality of taking tithes: the only +mode of discovering that fervid love of decimation which I know you to +possess would be to tender you an oath “against that damnable doctrine, +that it is lawful for a spiritual man to take, abstract, appropriate, +subduct, or lead away the tenth calf, sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, duck,” +&c., &c., &c., and every other animal that ever existed, which of course +the lawyers would take care to enumerate. Now this oath I am sure you +would rather die than take; and so the Catholic is excluded from +Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading +doctrines of his religion! The Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths +which oppress him; your answer is that he does not respect oaths. Then +why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of +Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either +your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations +as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the +eve of being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does +when he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour +of a dissenter. + +I will not dispute with you whether the Pope be or be not the Scarlet +Lady of Babylon. I hope it is not so; because I am afraid it will induce +His Majesty’s Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce several severe +bills against popery, if that is the case; and though he will have the +decency to appoint a previous committee of inquiry as to the fact, the +committee will be garbled, and the report inflammatory. Leaving this to +be settled as he pleases to settle it, I wish to inform you, that, +previously to the bill last passed in favour of the Catholics, at the +suggestion of Mr. Pitt, and for his satisfaction, the opinions of six of +the most celebrated of the foreign Catholic universities were taken as to +the right of the Pope to interfere in the temporal concerns of any +country. The answer cannot possibly leave the shadow of a doubt, even in +the mind of Baron Maseres; and Dr. Rennel would be compelled to admit it, +if three Bishops lay dead at the very moment the question were put to +him. To this answer might be added also the solemn declaration and +signature of all the Catholics in Great Britain. + +I should perfectly agree with you, if the Catholics admitted such a +dangerous dispensing power in the hands of the Pope; but they all deny +it, and laugh at it, and are ready to abjure it in the most decided +manner you can devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual head of their +Church; but are you really so foolish as to be imposed upon by mere +names? What matters it the seven-thousandth part of a farthing who is +the spiritual head of any Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce at the head of +the Church of Clapham? Is not Dr. Letsom at the head of the Quaker +Church? Is not the General Assembly at the head of the Church of +Scotland? How is the government disturbed by these many-headed Churches? +or in what way is the power of the Crown augmented by this almost nominal +dignity? + +The King appoints a fast-day once a year, and he makes the bishops: and +if the government would take half the pains to keep the Catholics out of +the arms of France that it does to widen Temple Bar, or improve Snow +Hill, the King would get into his hands the appointments of the titular +Bishops of Ireland. Both Mr. C-’s sisters enjoy pensions more than +sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries of the Irish Catholic +Church entirely at the disposal of the Crown. + +Everybody who knows Ireland knows perfectly well, that nothing would be +easier, with the expenditure of a little money, than to preserve enough +of the ostensible appointment in the hands of the Pope to satisfy the +scruples of the Catholics, while the real nomination remained with the +Crown. But, as I have before said, the moment the very name of Ireland +is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common +prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and +the fatuity of idiots. + +Whatever your opinion may be of the follies of the Roman Catholic +religion, remember they are the follies of four millions of human beings, +increasing rapidly in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, who, if firmly +united with this country, would set at defiance the power of France, and +if once wrested from their alliance with England, would in three years +render its existence as an independent nation absolutely impossible. You +speak of danger to the Establishment: I request to know when the +Establishment was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in Bantry Bay, +and whether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the Jesuits, were +half so terrible? Mr. Perceval and his parsons forget all this, in their +horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may be converted to holy water +and Catholic nonsense. They never see that, while they are saving these +venerable ladies from perdition, Ireland may be lost, England broken +down, and the Protestant Church, with all its deans, prebendaries, +Percevals, and Rennels, be swept into the vortex of oblivion. + +Do not, I beseech you, ever mention to me again the name of Dr. Duigenan. +I have been in every corner of Ireland, and have studied its present +strength and condition with no common labour. Be assured Ireland does +not contain at this moment less than five millions of people. There were +returned in the year 1791 to the hearth tax 701,000 houses, and there is +no kind of question that there were about 50,000 houses omitted in that +return. Taking, however, only the number returned for the tax, and +allowing the average of six to a house (a very small average for a +potato-fed people), this brings the population to 4,200,000 people in the +year 1791: and it can be shown from the clearest evidence (and Mr. +Newenham in his book shows it), that Ireland for the last fifty years has +increased in its population at the rate of 50 or 60,000 per annum; which +leaves the present population of Ireland at about five millions, after +every possible deduction for _existing circumstances_, _just and +necessary wars_, _monstrous and unnatural rebellions_, and all other +sources of human destruction. Of this population, two out of ten are +Protestants; and the half of the Protestant population are Dissenters, +and as inimical to the Church as the Catholics themselves. In this state +of things thumbscrews and whipping—admirable engines of policy as they +must be considered to be—will not ultimately avail. The Catholics will +hang over you; they will watch for the moment, and compel you hereafter +to give them ten times as much, against your will, as they would now be +contented with, if it were voluntarily surrendered. Remember what +happened in the American war, when Ireland compelled you to give her +everything she asked, and to renounce, in the most explicit manner, your +claim of Sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the folly of these +present men may not bring on such another crisis of public affairs! + +What are your dangers which threaten the Establishment?—Reduce this +declamation to a point, and let us understand what you mean. The most +ample allowance does not calculate that there would be more than twenty +members who were Roman Catholics in one house, and ten in the other, if +the Catholic emancipation were carried into effect. Do you mean that +these thirty members would bring in a bill to take away the tithes from +the Protestant, and to pay them to the Catholic clergy? Do you mean that +a Catholic general would march his army into the House of Commons, and +purge it of Mr. Perceval and Dr. Duigenan? or, that the theological +writers would become all of a sudden more acute or more learned, if the +present civil incapacities were removed? Do you fear for your tithes, or +your doctrines, or your person, or the English Constitution? Every fear, +taken separately, is so glaringly absurd, that no man has the folly or +the boldness to state it. Every one conceals his ignorance, or his +baseness, in a stupid general panic, which, when called on, he is utterly +incapable of explaining. Whatever you think of the Catholics, there they +are—you cannot get rid of them; your alternative is to give them a lawful +place for stating their grievances, or an unlawful one: if you do not +admit them to the House of Commons, they will hold their parliament in +Potatoe Place, Dublin, and be ten times as violent and inflammatory as +they would be in Westminster. Nothing would give me such an idea of +security as to see twenty or thirty Catholic gentlemen in Parliament, +looked upon by all the Catholics as the fair and proper organ of their +party. I should have thought it the height of good fortune that such a +wish existed on their part, and the very essence of madness and ignorance +to reject it. Can you murder the Catholics? Can you neglect them? They +are too numerous for both these expedients. What remains to be done is +obvious to every human being—but to that man who, instead of being a +Methodist preacher, is, for the curse of us and our children, and for the +ruin of Troy and the misery of good old Priam and his sons, become a +legislator and a politician. + +A distinction, I perceive, is taken by one of the most feeble noblemen in +Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political +power; whereas, there is no more distinction between these two things +than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I +strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic, and give him twenty +stripes . . . I persecute; if I say, Everybody in the town where you live +shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices, but you, who +are a Catholic . . . I do not persecute! What barbarous nonsense is +this! as if degradation was not as great an evil as bodily pain or as +severe poverty: as if I could not be as great a tyrant by saying, You +shall not enjoy—as by saying, You shall suffer. The English, I believe, +are as truly religious as any nation in Europe; I know no greater +blessing; but it carries with it this evil in its train, that any villain +who will bawl out, “_The Church is in danger_!” may get a place and a +good pension; and that any administration who will do the same thing may +bring a set of men into power who, at a moment of stationary and passive +piety, would be hooted by the very boys in the streets. But it is not +all religion; it is, in great part, the narrow and exclusive spirit which +delights to keep the common blessings of sun and air and freedom from +other human beings. “Your religion has always been degraded; you are in +the dust, and I will take care you never rise again. I should enjoy less +the possession of an earthly good by every additional person to whom it +was extended.” You may not be aware of it yourself, most reverend +Abraham, but you deny their freedom to the Catholics upon the same +principle that Sarah your wife refuses to give the receipt for a ham or a +gooseberry dumpling: she values her receipts, not because they secure to +her a certain flavour, but because they remind her that her neighbours +want it:—a feeling laughable in a priestess, shameful in a priest; venial +when it withholds the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable when +it narrows the boon of religious freedom. + +You spend a great deal of ink about the character of the present prime +minister. Grant you all that you write—I say, I fear he will ruin +Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to the true interest of +his country: and then you tell me, he is faithful to Mrs. Perceval, and +kind to the Master Percevals! These are, undoubtedly, the first +qualifications to be looked to in a time of the most serious public +danger; but somehow or another (if public and private virtues must always +be incompatible), I should prefer that he destroyed the domestic +happiness of Wood or Cockell, owed for the veal of the preceding year, +whipped his boys, and saved his country. + +The late administration did not do right; they did not build their +measures upon the solid basis of facts. They should have caused several +Catholics to have been dissected after death by surgeons of either +religion; and the report to have been published with accompanying plates. +If the viscera, and other organs of life, had been found to be the same +as in Protestant bodies; if the provisions of nerves, arteries, cerebrum, +and cerebellum, had been the same as we are provided with, or as the +Dissenters are now known to possess; then, indeed, they might have met +Mr. Perceval upon a proud eminence, and convinced the country at large of +the strong probability that the Catholics are really human creatures, +endowed with the feelings of men, and entitled to all their rights. But +instead of this wise and prudent measure, Lord Howick, with his usual +precipitation, brings forward a bill in their favour, without offering +the slightest proof to the country that they were anything more than +horses and oxen. The person who shows the lama at the corner of +Piccadilly has the precaution to write up—_Allowed by Sir Joseph Banks to +be a real quadruped_, so his Lordship might have said—_Allowed by the +bench of Bishops to be real human creatures_. . . . I could write you +twenty letters upon this subject; but I am tired, and so I suppose are +you. Our friendship is now of forty years’ standing; you know me to be a +truly religious man; but I shudder to see religion treated like a +cockade, or a pint of beer, and made the instrument of a party. I love +the king, but I love the people as well as the king; and if I am sorry to +see his old age molested, I am much more sorry to see four millions of +Catholics baffled in their just expectations. If I love Lord Grenville, +and Lord Howick, it is because they love their country; if I abhor . . . +it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not laughing +at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and that he is an +ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and frivolous jester, +of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear Abraham, +that this political Killigrew, just before the breaking-up of the last +administration, was in actual treaty with them for a place; and if they +had survived twenty-four hours longer, he would have been now declaiming +against the cry of No Popery! instead of inflaming it. With this +practical comment on the baseness of human nature, I bid you adieu! + + + +LETTER III. + + +ALL that I have so often told you, Mr. Abraham Plymley, is now come to +pass. The Scythians, in whom you and the neighbouring country gentleman +placed such confidence, are smitten hip and thigh; their Beningsen put to +open shame; their magazines of train oil intercepted, and we are waking +from our disgraceful drunkenness to all the horrors of Mr. Perceval and +Mr. Canning . . . We shall now see if a nation is to be saved by +school-boy jokes and doggrel rhymes, by affronting petulance, and by the +tones and gesticulations of Mr. Pitt. But these are not all the +auxiliaries on which we have to depend; to these his colleague will add +the strictest attention to the smaller parts of ecclesiastical +government, to hassocks, to psalters, and to surplices; in the last +agonies of England, he will bring in a bill to regulate Easter-offerings: +and he will adjust the stipends of curates, when the flag of France is +unfurled on the hills of Kent. Whatever can be done by very mistaken +notions of the piety of a Christian, and by a very wretched imitation of +the eloquence of Mr. Pitt, will be done by these two gentlemen. After +all, if they both really were what they both either wish to be, or wish +to be thought; if the one were an enlightened Christian who drew from the +Gospel the toleration, the charity, and the sweetness which it contains; +and if the other really possessed any portion of the great understanding +of his Nisus who guarded him from the weapons of the Whigs, I should +still doubt if they could save us. But I am sure we are not to be saved +by religious hatred, and by religious trifling; by any psalmody, however +sweet; or by any persecution, however sharp; I am certain the sounds of +Mr. Pitt’s voice, and the measure of his tones, and the movement of his +arms, will do nothing for us; when these tones and movements, and voice +brings us always declamation without sense or knowledge, and ridicule +without good humour or conciliation. Oh, Mr. Plymley, this never will +do. Mrs. Abraham Plymley, my sister, will be led away captive by an +amorous Gaul; and Joel Plymley your firstborn, will be a French drummer. + +Out of sight, out of mind, seems to be a proverb which applies to enemies +as well as friends. Because the French army was no longer seen from the +cliffs of Dover; because the sound of cannon was no longer heard by the +debauched London bathers on the Sussex coast; because the _Morning Post_ +no longer fixed the invasion sometimes for Monday, sometimes for Tuesday, +sometimes (positively for the last time of invading) on Saturday; because +all these causes of terror were suspended, you conceived the power of +Bonaparte to be at an end, and were setting off for Paris with Lord +Hawkesbury the conqueror. This is precisely the method in which the +English have acted during the whole of the revolutionary war. If Austria +or Prussia armed, doctors of divinity immediately printed those passages +out of Habakkuk, in which the destruction of the Usurper by General Mack, +and the Duke of Brunswick, are so clearly predicted. If Bonaparte +halted, there was a mutiny or a dysentery. If any one of his generals +were eaten up by the light troops of Russia, and picked (as their manner +is) to the bone, the sanguine spirit of this country displayed itself in +all its glory. What scenes of infamy did the Society for the Suppression +of Vice lay open to our astonished eyes! tradesmen’s daughters dancing, +pots of beer carried out between the first and second lesson, and dark +and distant rumours of indecent prints. Clouds of Mr. Canning’s cousins +arrived by the waggon; all the contractors left their cards with Mr. +Rose; and every plunderer of the public crawled out of his hole, like +slugs, and grubs, and worms after a shower of rain. + +If my voice could have been heard at the late changes, I should have +said, “Gently, patience, stop a little; the time is not yet come; the mud +of Poland will harden, and the bowels of the French grenadiers will +recover their tone. When honesty, good sense, and liberality have +extricated you out of your present embarrassment, then dismiss them as a +matter of course; but you cannot spare them just now; don’t be in too +great a hurry, or there will be no monarch to flatter, and no country to +pillage; only submit for a little time to be respected abroad, overlook +the painful absence of the tax-gatherer for a few years, bear up nobly +under the increase of freedom and of liberal policy for a little time, +and I promise you, at the expiration of that period, you shall be +plundered, insulted, disgraced, and restrained to your heart’s content. +Do not imagine I have any intention of putting servility and canting +hypocrisy permanently out of place, or of filling up with courage and +sense those offices which naturally devolve upon decorous imbecility and +flexible cunning: give us only a little time to keep off the hussars of +France, and then the jobbers and jesters shall return to their +birthright, and public virtue be called by its own name of fanaticism.” +Such is the advice I would have offered to my infatuated countrymen: but +it rained very hard in November, Brother Abraham, and the bowels of our +enemies were loosened, and we put our trust in white fluxes and wet mud; +and there is nothing now to oppose to the conqueror of the world but a +small table wit, and the sallow Surveyor of the Meltings. + +You ask me, if I think it possible for this country to survive the recent +misfortunes of Europe?—I answer you, without the slightest degree of +hesitation: that if Bonaparte lives, and a great deal is not immediately +done for the conciliation of the Catholics, it does seem to me absolutely +impossible but that we must perish; and take this with you, that we shall +perish without exciting the slightest feeling of present or future +compassion, but fall amidst the hootings and revilings of Europe, as a +nation of blockheads, Methodists, and old women. If there were any great +scenery, any heroic feelings, any blaze of ancient virtue, any exalted +death, any termination of England that would be ever remembered, ever +honoured in that western world, where liberty is now retiring, conquest +would be more tolerable, and ruin more sweet; but it is doubly miserable +to become slaves abroad, because we would be tyrants at home; to +persecute, when we are contending against persecution; and to perish, +because we have raised up worse enemies within, from our own bigotry, +than we are exposed to without, from the unprincipled ambition of France. +It is indeed a most silly and affecting spectacle to rage at such a +moment against our own kindred and our own blood; to tell them they +cannot be honourable in war, because they are conscientious in religion; +to stipulate (at the very moment when we should buy their hearts and +swords at any price) that they must hold up the right hand in prayer, and +not the left; and adore one common God, by turning to the east rather +than to the west. + +What is it the Catholics ask of you? Do not exclude us from the honours +and emoluments of the state because we worship God in one way, and you +worship Him in another. In a period of the deepest peace, and the +fattest prosperity, this would be a fair request; it should be granted, +if Lord Hawkesbury had reached Paris, if Mr. Canning’s interpreter had +threatened the Senate in an opening speech, or Mr. Perceval explained to +them the improvements he meant to introduce into the Catholic religion; +but to deny the Irish this justice now, in the present state of Europe, +and in the summer months, just as the season for destroying kingdoms is +coming on, is (beloved Abraham), whatever you may think of it, little +short of positive insanity. + +Here is a frigate attacked by a corsair of immense strength and size, +rigging cut, masts in danger of coming by the board, four foot water in +the hold, men dropping off very fast; in this dreadful situation how do +you think the Captain acts (whose name shall be Perceval)? He calls all +hands upon deck; talks to them of King, country, glory, sweethearts, gin, +French prison, wooden shoes, Old England, and hearts of oak; they give +three cheers, rush to their guns, and, after a tremendous conflict, +succeed in beating off the enemy. Not a syllable of all this; this is +not the manner in which the honourable Commander goes to work: the first +thing he does is to secure twenty or thirty of his prime sailors who +happen to be Catholics, to clap them in irons, and set over them a guard +of as many Protestants; having taken this admirable method of defending +himself against his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, reminds the +sailors in a very bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; +exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the Presbyterian +quartermaster; issues positive orders that the Catholics should be fired +at upon the first appearance of discontent; rushes through blood and +brains, examining his men in the Catechism and thirty-nine Articles, and +positively forbids every one to sponge or ram who has not taken the +Sacrament according to the Church of England. Was it right to take out a +captain made of excellent British stuff, and to put in such a man as +this? Is not he more like a parson, or a talking lawyer, than a +thorough-bred seaman? And built as she is of heart of oak, and admirably +manned, is it possible, with such a captain, to save this ship from going +to the bottom? + +You have an argument, I perceive, in common with many others, against the +Catholics, that their demands complied with would only lead to further +exactions, and that it is better to resist them now, before anything is +conceded, than hereafter, when it is found that all concessions are in +vain. I wish the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who uses this reasoning to +exclude others from their just rights, had tried its efficacy, not by his +understanding, but by (what are full of much better things) his pockets. +Suppose the person to whom he applied for the meltings had withstood +every plea of wife and fourteen children, no business, and good +character, and refused him this paltry little office because he might +hereafter attempt to get hold of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster +for life? would not Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the +injustice of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones may +hereafter be made? Would he not have said, and said truly, Leave such +exorbitant attempts as these to the general indignation of the Commons, +who will take care to defeat them when they do occur; but do not refuse +me the Irons and the Meltings now, because I may totally lose sight of +all moderation hereafter? Leave hereafter to the spirit and the wisdom +of hereafter; and do not be niggardly now from the apprehension that men +as wise as you should be profuse in times to come. + +You forget, Brother Abraham, that is a vast art, where quarrels cannot be +avoided, to turn public opinion in your favour and to the prejudice of +your enemy; a vast privilege to feel that you are in the right, and to +make him feel that he is in the wrong: a privilege which makes you more +than a man, and your antagonist less; and often secures victory by +convincing him who contends that he must submit to injustice if he +submits to defeat. Open every rank in the army and the navy to the +Catholic; let him purchase at the same price as the Protestant (if either +Catholic or Protestant can purchase such refined pleasures) the privilege +of hearing Lord Castlereagh speak for three hours; keep his clergy from +starving, soften some of the most odious powers of the tithing-man, and +you will for ever lay this formidable question to rest. But if I am +wrong, and you must quarrel at last, quarrel upon just rather than unjust +grounds; divide the Catholic and unite the Protestant; be just, and your +own exertions will be more formidable and their exertions less +formidable; be just, and you will take away from their party all the best +and wisest understandings of both persuasions, and knit them firmly to +your own cause. “Thrice is he armed who has his quarrel just;” and ten +times as much may he be taxed. In the beginning of any war, however +destitute of common sense, every mob will roar, and every Lord of the +Bedchamber address; but if you are engaged in a war that is to last for +years, and to require important sacrifices, take care to make the justice +of your case so clear and so obvious that it cannot be mistaken by the +most illiterate country gentleman who rides the earth. Nothing, in fact, +can be so grossly absurd as the argument which says I will deny justice +to you now, because I suspect future injustice from you. At this rate, +you may lock a man up in your stable, and refuse to let him out, because +you suspect that he has an intention, at some future period, of robbing +your hen-roost. You may horsewhip him at Lady Day, because you believe +he will affront you at Midsummer. You may commit a greater evil, to +guard against a less which is merely contingent, and may never happen. +You may do what you have done a century ago in Ireland, make the +Catholics worse than Helots, because you suspected that they might +hereafter aspire to be more than fellow citizens; rendering their +sufferings certain from your jealousy, while yours were only doubtful +from their ambition; an ambition sure to be excited by the very measures +which were taken to prevent it. + +The physical strength of the Catholics will not be greater because you +give them a share of political power. You may by these means turn rebels +into friends; but I do not see how you make rebels more formidable. If +they taste of the honey of lawful power, they will love the hive from +whence they procure it; if they will struggle with us like men in the +same state for civil influence, we are safe. All that I dread is the +physical strength of four millions of men combined with an invading +French army. If you are to quarrel at last with this enormous +population, still put it off as long as you can; you must gain, and +cannot lose, by the delay. The state of Europe cannot be worse; the +conviction which the Catholics entertain of your tyranny and injustice +cannot be more alarming, nor the opinions of your own people more +divided. Time, which produces such effect upon brass and marble, may +inspire one Minister with modesty and another with compassion; every +circumstance may be better; some certainly will be so, none can be worse; +and after all the evil may never happen. + +You have got hold, I perceive, of all the vulgar English stories +respecting the hereditary transmission of forfeited property, and +seriously believe that every Catholic beggar wears the terriers of his +father’s land next his skin, and is only waiting for better times to cut +the throat of the Protestant possessor, and get drunk in the hall of his +ancestors. There is one irresistible answer to this mistake, and that +is, that the forfeited lands are purchased indiscriminately by Catholic +and Protestant, and that the Catholic purchaser never objects to such a +title. Now the land so purchased by a Catholic is either his own family +estate, or it is not. If it is, you suppose him so desirous of coming +into possession that he resorts to the double method of rebellion and +purchase; if it is not his own family estate of which he becomes the +purchaser, you suppose him first to purchase, then to rebel, in order to +defeat the purchase. These things may happen in Ireland, but it is +totally impossible they can happen anywhere else. In fact, what land can +any man of any sect purchase in Ireland, but forfeited property? In all +other oppressed countries which I have ever heard of, the rapacity of the +conqueror was bounded by the territorial limits in which the objects of +his avarice were contained; but Ireland has been actually confiscated +twice over, as a cat is twice killed by a wicked parish boy. + +I admit there is a vast luxury in selecting a particular set of +Christians, and in worrying them as a boy worries a puppy dog; it is an +amusement in which all the young English are brought up from their +earliest days. I like the idea of saying to men who use a different +hassock from me, that till they change their hassock they shall never be +Colonels, Aldermen, or Parliament-men. While I am gratifying my personal +insolence respecting religious forms, I fondle myself into an idea that I +am religious, and that I am doing my duty in the most exemplary, as I +certainly am in the most easy, way. But then, my good Abraham, this +sport, admirable as it is, is become, with respect to the Catholics, a +little dangerous; and if we are not extremely careful in taking the +amusement, we shall tumble into the holy water and be drowned. As it +seems necessary to your idea of an established church to have somebody to +worry and torment, suppose we were to select for this purpose William +Wilberforce, Esq., and the patent Christians of Clapham. We shall by +this expedient enjoy the same opportunity for cruelty and injustice, +without being exposed to the same risks: we will compel them to abjure +vital clergymen by a public test, to deny that the said William +Wilberforce has any power of working miracles, touching for barrenness or +any other infirmity, or that he is endowed with any preternatural gift +whatever. We will swear them to the doctrine of good works, compel them +to preach common sense, and to hear it; to frequent Bishops, Deans, and +other High Churchmen; and to appear, once in the quarter at the least, at +some melodrame, opera, pantomime, or other light scenical representation; +in short, we will gratify the love of insolence and power; we will enjoy +the old orthodox sport of witnessing the impotent anger of men compelled +to submit to civil degradation, or to sacrifice their notions of truth to +ours. And all this we may do without the slightest risk, because their +numbers are, as yet, not very considerable. Cruelty and injustice must, +of course, exist; but why connect them with danger? Why torture a +bulldog when you can get a frog or a rabbit? I am sure my proposal will +meet with the most universal approbation. Do not be apprehensive of any +opposition from ministers. If it is a case of hatred, we are sure that +one man will defend it by the Gospel: if it abridges human freedom, we +know that another will find precedents for it in the Revolution. + +In the name of Heaven, what are we to gain by suffering Ireland to be +rode by that faction which now predominates over it? Why are we to +endanger our own Church and State, not for 500,000 Episcopalians, but for +ten or twelve great Orange families, who have been sucking the blood of +that country for these hundred years last past? and the folly of the +Orangemen in playing this game themselves, is almost as absurd as ours in +playing it for them. They ought to have the sense to see that their +business now is to keep quietly the lands and beeves of which the fathers +of the Catholics were robbed in days of yore; they must give to their +descendants the sop of political power: by contending with them for +names, they will lose realities, and be compelled to beg their potatoes +in a foreign land, abhorred equally by the English, who have witnessed +their oppression, and by the Catholic Irish, who have smarted under them. + + + +LETTER IV. + + +THEN comes Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown (the gentleman who danced so badly at +the Court of Naples), and asks if it is not an anomaly to educate men in +another religion than your own. It certainly is our duty to get rid of +error, and, above all, of religious error; but this is not to be done +_per saltum_, or the measure will miscarry, like the Queen. It may be +very easy to dance away the royal embryo of a great kingdom; but Mr. +Hawkins Brown must look before he leaps, when his object is to crush an +opposite sect in religion; false steps aid the one effect as much as they +are fatal to the other: it will require not only the lapse of Mr. Hawkins +Brown, but the lapse of centuries, before the absurdities of the Catholic +religion are laughed at as much as they deserve to be; but surely, in the +meantime, the Catholic religion is better than none; four millions of +Catholics are better than four millions of wild beasts; two hundred +priests educated by our own government are better than the same number +educated by the man who means to destroy us. + +The whole sum now appropriated by Government to the religious education +of four millions of Christians is £13,000; a sum about one hundred times +as large being appropriated in the same country to about one-eighth part +of this number of Protestants. When it was proposed to raise this grant +from £8,000 to £13,000, its present amount, this sum was objected to by +that most indulgent of Christians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, as enormous; he +himself having secured for his own eating and drinking, and the eating +and drinking of the Master and Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of +£21,000 a year of the public money, and having just failed in a desperate +and rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of the +Duchy of Lancaster: and the best of it is, that this minister, after +abusing his predecessors for their impious bounty to the Catholics, has +found himself compelled, from the apprehension of immediate danger, to +grant the sum in question, thus dissolving his pearl in vinegar, and +destroying all the value of the gift by the virulence and reluctance with +which it was granted. + +I hear from some persons in Parliament, and from others in the sixpenny +societies for debate, a great deal about unalterable laws passed at the +Revolution. When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only +effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable +fool. A law passed when there was Germany, Spain, Russia, Sweden, +Holland, Portugal, and Turkey; when there was a disputed succession; when +four or five hundred acres were won and lost after ten years’ hard +fighting; when armies were commanded by the sons of kings, and campaigns +passed in an interchange of civil letters and ripe fruit; and for these +laws, when the whole state of the world is completely changed, we are +now, according to my Lord Hawkesbury, to hold ourselves ready to perish. +It is no mean misfortune, in times like these, to be forced to say +anything about such men as Lord Hawkesbury, and to be reminded that we +are governed by them, but as I am driven to it, I must take the liberty +of observing that the wisdom and liberality of my Lord Hawkesbury are of +that complexion which always shrinks from the present exercise of these +virtues by praising the splendid examples of them in ages past. If he +had lived at such periods, he would have opposed the Revolution by +praising the Reformation, and the Reformation by speaking handsomely of +the Crusades. He gratifies his natural antipathy to great and courageous +measures by playing off the wisdom and courage which have ceased to +influence human affairs against that wisdom and courage which living men +would employ for present happiness. Besides, it happens unfortunately +for the Warden of the Cinque Ports, that to the principal incapacities +under which the Irish suffer, they were subjected after that great and +glorious revolution, to which we are indebted for so many blessings, and +his Lordship for the termination of so many periods. The Catholics were +not excluded from the Irish House of Commons, or military commands, +before the 3rd and 4th of William and Mary, and the 1st and 2nd of Queen +Anne. + +If the great mass of the people, environed as they are on every side with +Jenkinsons, Percevals, Melvilles, and other perils, were to pray for +divine illumination and aid, what more could Providence in its mercy do +than send them the example of Scotland? For what a length of years was +it attempted to compel the Scotch to change their religion: horse, foot, +artillery, and armed Prebendaries, were sent out after the Presbyterian +parsons and their congregations. The Percevals of those days called for +blood: this call is never made in vain, and blood was shed; but, to the +astonishment and horror of the Percevals of those days, they could not +introduce the book of Common Prayer, nor prevent that metaphysical people +from going to heaven their true way, instead of our true way. With a +little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur for friction, allaying +cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and holding his Calvinistical +creed in the other, Sawney ran away to his flinty hills, sung his psalm +out of tune his own way, and listened to his sermon of two hours long, +amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles. But +Sawney brought up his unbreeched offspring in a cordial hatred of his +oppressors; and Scotland was as much a part of the weakness of England +then as Ireland is at this moment. The true and the only remedy was +applied; the Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own tiresome +manner, without pain, penalty, or privation. No lightning descended from +heaven: the country was not ruined; the world is not yet come to an end; +the dignitaries who foretold all these consequences are utterly +forgotten, and Scotland has ever since been an increasing source of +strength to Great Britain. In the six hundredth year of our empire over +Ireland we are making laws to transport a man if he is found out of his +house after eight o’clock at night. That this is necessary I know too +well; but tell me why it is necessary. It is not necessary in Greece, +where the Turks are masters. + +Are you aware that there is at this moment a universal clamour throughout +the whole of Ireland against the Union? It is now one month since I +returned from that country; I have never seen so extraordinary, so +alarming, and so rapid a change in the sentiments of any people. Those +who disliked the Union before are quite furious against it now; those who +doubted doubt no more; those who were friendly to it have exchanged that +friendship for the most rooted aversion; in the midst of all this (which +is by far the most alarming symptom), there is the strongest disposition +on the part of the northern Dissenters to unite with the Catholics, +irritated by the faithless injustice with which they have been treated. +If this combination does take place (mark what I say to you), you will +have meetings all over Ireland for the cry of _No Union_; that cry will +spread like wild-fire, and blaze over every opposition; and if this be +the case, there is no use in mincing the matter; Ireland is gone, and the +death-blow of England is struck; and this event may happen +_instantly_—before Mr. Canning and Mr. Hookham Frere have turned Lord +Howick’s last speech into doggerel rhymne; before “_the near and dear +relations_” have received another quarter of their pension, or Mr. +Perceval conducted the Curates’ Salary Bill safely to a third reading. +If the mind of the English people, cursed as they now are with that +madness of religious dissension which has been breathed into them for the +purposes of private ambition, can be alarmed by any remembrances, and +warned by any events, they should never forget how nearly Ireland was +lost to this country during the American war; that it was saved merely by +the jealousy of the Protestant Irish towards the Catholics, then a much +more insignificant and powerless body than they now are. The Catholic +and the Dissenter have since combined together against you. Last war, +the winds, those ancient and unsubsidised allies of England; the winds, +upon which English ministers depend as much for saving kingdoms as +washerwomen do for drying clothes; the winds stood your friends: the +French could only get into Ireland in small numbers, and the rebels were +defeated. Since then, all the remaining kingdoms of Europe have been +destroyed; and the Irish see that their national independence is gone, +without having received any single one of those advantages which they +were taught to expect from the sacrifice. All good things were to flow +from the Union; they have none of them gained anything. Every man’s +pride is wounded by it; no man’s interest is promoted. In the seventh +year of that union four million Catholics, lured by all kinds of promises +to yield up the separate dignity and sovereignty of their country, are +forced to squabble with such a man as Mr. Spencer Perceval for five +thousand pounds with which to educate their children in their own mode of +worship, he, the same Mr. Spencer, having secured to his own Protestant +self a reversionary portion of the public money amounting to four times +that sum. A senior Proctor of the University of Oxford, the head of a +house, or the examining chaplain to a bishop, may believe these things +can last; but every man of the world, whose understanding has been +exercised in the business of life, must see (and see with a breaking +heart) that they will soon come to a fearful termination. + +Our conduct to Ireland during the whole of this war has been that of a +man who subscribes to hospitals, weeps at charity sermons, carries out +broth and blankets to beggars, and then comes home and beats his wife and +children. We had compassion for the victims of all other oppression and +injustice except our own. If Switzerland was threatened, away went a +Treasury Clerk with a hundred thousand pounds for Switzerland; large bags +of money were kept constantly under sailing orders; upon the slightest +demonstration towards Naples, down went Sir William Hamilton upon his +knees, and begged for the love of St. Januarius they would help us off +with a little money; all the arts of Machiavel were resorted to to +persuade Europe to borrow; troops were sent off in all directions to save +the Catholic and Protestant world; the Pope himself was guarded by a +regiment of English dragoons; if the Grand Lama had been at hand, he +would have had another; every Catholic clergyman who had the good fortune +to be neither English nor Irish was immediately provided with lodging, +soap, crucifix, missal, chapel-beads, relics, and holy water; if Turks +had landed, Turks would have received an order from the Treasury for +coffee, opium, korans, and seraglios. In the midst of all this fury of +saving and defending this crusade for conscience and Christianity, there +was a universal agreement among all descriptions of people to continue +every species of internal persecution, to deny at home every just right +that had been denied before, to pummel poor Dr. Abraham Rees and his +Dissenters, and to treat the unhappy Catholics of Ireland as if their +tongues were mute, their heels cloven, their nature brutal, and +designedly subjected by Providence to their Orange masters. + +How would my admirable brother, the Rev. Abraham Plymley, like to be +marched to a Catholic chapel, to be sprinkled with the sanctified +contents of a pump, to hear a number of false quantities in the Latin +tongue, and to see a number of persons occupied in making right angles +upon the breast and forehead? And if all this would give you so much +pain, what right have you to march Catholic soldiers to a place of +worship, where there is no aspersion, no rectangular gestures, and where +they understand every word they hear, having first, in order to get him +to enlist, made a solemn promise to the contrary? Can you wonder, after +this, that the Catholic priest stops the recruiting in Ireland, as he is +now doing to a most alarming degree? + +The late question concerning military rank did not individually affect +the lowest persons of the Catholic persuasion; but do you imagine they do +not sympathise with the honour and disgrace of their superiors? Do you +think that satisfaction and dissatisfaction do not travel down from Lord +Fingal to the most potato-less Catholic in Ireland, and that the glory or +shame of the sect is not felt by many more than these conditions +personally and corporeally affect? Do you suppose that the detection of +Sir Henry Mildmay, and the disappointment of Mr. Perceval _in the matter_ +of the Duchy of Lancaster, did not affect every dabbler in public +property? Depend upon it these things were felt through all the +gradations of small plunderers, down to him who filches a pound of +tobacco from the King’s warehouses; while, on the contrary, the acquittal +of any noble and official thief would not fail to diffuse the most +heart-felt satisfaction over the larcenous and burglarious world. +Observe, I do not say because the lower Catholics are affected by what +concerns their superiors, that they are not affected by what concerns +themselves. There is no disguising the horrid truth, _there must be some +relaxation with respect to tithe_: this is the cruel and heart-rending +price which must be paid for national preservation. I feel how little +existence will be worth having, if any alteration, however slight, is +made in the property of Irish rectors; I am conscious how much such +changes must affect the daily and hourly comforts of every Englishman; I +shall feel too happy if they leave Europe untouched, and are not +ultimately fatal to the destinies of America; but I am madly bent upon +keeping foreign enemies out of the British empire, and my limited +understanding presents me with no other means of effecting my object. + +You talk of waiting till another reign before any alteration is made; a +proposal full of good sense and good nature, if the measure in question +were to pull down St. James’s Palace, or to alter Kew Gardens. Will +Bonaparte agree to put off his intrigues, and his invasion of Ireland? +If so, I will overlook the question of justice, and finding the danger +suspended, agree to the delay. I sincerely hope this reign may last many +years, yet the delay of a single session of Parliament may be fatal; but +if another year elapse without some serious concession made to the +Catholics, I believe, before God, that all future pledges and concessions +will be made in vain. I do not think that peace will do you any good +under such circumstances. If Bonaparte give you a respite, it will only +be to get ready the gallows on which he means to hang you. The Catholic +and the Dissenter can unite in peace as well as war. If they do, the +gallows is ready, and your executioner, in spite of the most solemn +promises, will turn you off the next hour. + +With every disposition to please (where to please within fair and +rational limits is a high duty), it is impossible for public men to be +long silent about the Catholics; pressing evils are not got rid of, +because they are not talked of. A man may command his family to say +nothing more about the stone and surgical operations; but the ponderous +malice still lies upon the nerve, and gets so big, that the patient +breaks his own law of silence, clamours for the knife, and expires under +its late operation. Believe me, you talk folly when you talk of +suppressing the Catholic question. I wish to God the case admitted of +such a remedy; bad as it is, it does not admit of it. If the wants of +the Catholics are not heard in the manly tones of Lord Grenville, or the +servile drawl of Lord Castlereagh, they will be heard ere long in the +madness of mobs, and the conflicts of armed men. + +I observe it is now universally the fashion to speak of the first +personage in the state as the great obstacle to the measure. In the +first place, I am not bound to believe such rumours because I hear them; +and in the next place, I object to such language, as unconstitutional. +Whoever retains his situation in the ministry while the incapacities of +the Catholics remain, is the advocate for those incapacities; and to him, +and to him only, am I to look for responsibility. But waive this +question of the Catholics, and put a general case:—How is a minister of +this country to act when the conscientious scruples of his Sovereign +prevent the execution of a measure deemed by him absolutely necessary to +the safety of the country? His conduct is quite clear—he should resign. +But what is his successor to do?—Resign. But is the King to be left +without ministers, and is he in this manner to be compelled to act +against his own conscience? Before I answer this, pray tell me in my +turn what better defence is there against the machinations of a wicked, +or the errors of a weak Monarch, than the impossibility of finding a +minister who will lend himself to vice and folly? Every English Monarch, +in such a predicament, would sacrifice his opinions and views to such a +clear expression of the public will; and it is one method in which the +Constitution aims at bringing about such a sacrifice. You may say, if +you please, the ruler of a state is forced to give up his object when the +natural love of place and power will tempt no one to assist him in its +attainment; this may be force; but it is force without injury, and +therefore without blame. I am not to be beat out of these obvious +reasonings, and ancient constitutional provisions, by the term +conscience. There is no fantasy, however wild, that a man may not +persuade himself that he cherishes from motives of conscience; eternal +war against impious France, or rebellious America, or Catholic Spain, may +in times to come be scruples of conscience. One English Monarch may, +from scruples of conscience, wish to abolish every trait of religious +persecution; another Monarch may deem it his absolute and indispensable +duty to make a slight provision for Dissenters out of the revenues of the +Church of England. So that you see, Brother Abraham, there are cases +where it would be the duty of the best and most loyal subjects to oppose +the conscientious scruples of their Sovereign, still taking care that +their actions were constitutional and their modes respectful. Then you +come upon me with personal questions, and say that no such dangers are to +be apprehended now under our present gracious Sovereign, of whose good +qualities we must be all so well convinced. All these sorts of +discussions I beg leave to decline. What I have said upon constitutional +topics, I mean of course for general, not for particular application. I +agree with you in all the good you have said of the powers that be, and I +avail myself of the opportunity of pointing out general dangers to the +Constitution, at a moment when we are so completely exempted from their +present influence. I cannot finish this letter without expressing my +surprise and pleasure at your abuse of the servile addresses poured in +upon the throne, nor can I conceive a greater disgust to a Monarch, with +a true English heart, than to see such a question as that of Catholic +Emancipation argued, not with a reference to its justice or importance, +but universally considered to be of no further consequence than as it +affects his own private feelings. That these sentiments should be mine +is not wonderful; but how they came to be yours does, I confess, fill me +with surprise. Are you moved by the arrival of the Irish Brigade at +Antwerp, and the amorous violence which awaits Mrs. Plymley? + + + +LETTER V. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—I never met a parson in my life who did not consider the +Corporation and Test Acts as the great bulwarks of the Church; and yet it +is now just sixty-four years since bills of indemnity to destroy their +penal effects, or, in other words, to repeal them, have been passed +annually as a matter of course. + + _Heu vatum ignar mentes_. + +These bulwarks, without which no clergyman thinks he could sleep with his +accustomed soundness, have actually not been in existence since any man +now living has taken holy orders. Every year the Indemnity Act pardons +past breaches of these two laws, and prevents any fresh actions of +informers from coming to a conclusion before the period for the next +indemnity bill arrives; so that these penalties, by which alone the +Church remains in existence, have not had one moment’s operation for +sixty-four years. You will say the legislature, during the whole of this +period, has reserved to itself the discretion of suspending or not +suspending. But had not the legislature the right of re-enacting, if it +was necessary? And now when you have kept the rod over these people +(with the most scandalous abuse of all principle) for sixty-four years, +and not found it necessary to strike once, is not that the best of all +reasons why the rod should be laid aside? You talk to me of a very +valuable hedge running across your fields which you would not part with +on any account. I go down, expecting to find a limit impervious to +cattle, and highly useful for the preservation of property; but, to my +utter astonishment, I find that the hedge was cut down half a century +ago, and that every year the shoots are clipped the moment they appear +above ground: it appears, upon further inquiry, that the hedge never +ought to have existed at all; that it originated in the malice of +antiquated quarrels, and was cut down because it subjected you to vast +inconvenience, and broke up your intercourse with a country absolutely +necessary to your existence. If the remains of this hedge serve only to +keep up an irritation in your neighbours, and to remind them of the feuds +of former times, good nature and good sense teach you that you ought to +grub it up, and cast it into the oven. This is the exact state of these +two laws; and yet it is made a great argument against concession to the +Catholics, that it involves their repeal; which is to say, Do not make me +relinquish a folly that will lead to my ruin; because, if you do, I must +give up other follies ten times greater than this. + +I confess, with all our bulwarks and hedges, it mortifies me to the quick +to contrast with our matchless stupidity and inimitable folly the conduct +of Bonaparte upon the subject of religious persecution. At the moment +when we are tearing the crucifixes from the necks of the Catholics, and +washing pious mud from the foreheads of the Hindoos; at that moment this +man is assembling the very Jews at Paris, and endeavouring to give them +stability and importance. I shall never be reconciled to mending shoes +in America; but I see it must be my lot, and I will then take a dreadful +revenge upon Mr. Perceval, if I catch him preaching within ten miles of +me. I cannot for the soul of me conceive whence this man has gained his +notions of Christianity: he has the most evangelical charity for errors +in arithmetic, and the most inveterate malice against errors in +conscience. While he rages against those whom in the true spirit of the +Gospel he ought to indulge, he forgets the only instance of severity +which that Gospel contains, and leaves the jobbers, contractors, and +money-changers at their seats, without a single stripe. + +You cannot imagine, you say, that England will ever be ruined and +conquered; and for no other reason that I can find, but because it seems +so very odd it should be ruined and conquered. Alas! so reasoned, in +their time, the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian Plymleys. But the +English are brave: so were all these nations. You might get together a +hundred thousand men individually brave; but without generals capable of +commanding such a machine, it would be as useless as a first-rate +man-of-war manned by Oxford clergymen or Parisian shopkeepers. I do not +say this to the disparagement of English officers: they have had no means +of acquiring experience; but I do say it to create alarm; for we do not +appear to me to be half alarmed enough, or to entertain that sense of our +danger which leads to the most obvious means of self-defence. As for the +spirit of the peasantry in making a gallant defence behind hedge-rows, +and through plate-racks and hen-coops, highly as I think of their +bravery, I do not know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with +the panic as the English; and this from their total unacquaintance with +the science of war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles round; +cart mares shot; sows of Lord Somerville’s breed running wild over the +country; the minister of the parish wounded sorely in his hinder parts; +Mrs. Plymley in fits. All these scenes of war an Austrian or a Russian +has seen three or four times over: but it is now three centuries since an +English pig has fallen in a fair battle upon English ground, or a +farm-house been rifled, or a clergyman’s wife been subjected to any other +proposals of love than the connubial endearments of her sleek and +orthodox mate. The old edition of Plutarch’s Lives, which lies in the +corner of your parlour window, has contributed to work you up to the most +romantic expectations of our Roman behaviour. You are persuaded that +Lord Amherst will defend Kew Bridge like Cocles; that some maid of honour +will break away from her captivity, and swim over the Thames; that the +Duke of York will burn his capitulating hand; and little Mr. Sturges +Bourne give forty years’ purchase for Moulsham Hall, while the French are +encamped upon it. I hope we shall witness all this, if the French do +come; but in the meantime I am so enchanted with the ordinary English +behaviour of these invaluable persons, that I earnestly pray no +opportunity may be given them for Roman valour, and for those very +un-Roman pensions which they would all, of course, take especial care to +claim in consequence. But whatever was our conduct, if every ploughman +was as great a hero as he who was called from his oxen to save Rome from +her enemies, I should still say, that at such a crisis you want the +affections of all your subjects in both islands: there is no spirit which +you must alienate, no art you must avert, every man must feel he has a +country, and that there is an urgent and pressing cause why he should +expose himself to death. + +The effects of penal laws in matters of religion are never confined to +those limits in which the legislature intended they should be placed: it +is not only that I am excluded from certain offices and dignities because +I am a Catholic, but the exclusion carries with it a certain stigma, +which degrades me in the eyes of the monopolising sect, and the very name +of my religion becomes odious. These effects are so very striking in +England, that I solemnly believe blue and red baboons to be more popular +here than Catholics and Presbyterians; they are more understood, and +there is a greater disposition to do something for them. When a country +squire hears of an ape, his first feeling is to give it nuts and apples; +when he hears of a Dissenter, his immediate impulse is to commit it to +the county gaol, to shave its head, to alter its customary food, and to +have it privately whipped. This is no caricature, but an accurate +picture of national feelings, as they degrade and endanger us at this +very moment. The Irish Catholic gentleman would bear his legal +disabilities with greater temper, if these were all he had to bear—if +they did not enable every Protestant cheese-monger and tide-waiter to +treat him with contempt. He is branded on the forehead with a red-hot +iron, and treated like a spiritual felon, because in the highest of all +considerations he is led by the noblest of all guides, his own +disinterested conscience. + +Why are nonsense and cruelty a bit the better because they are enacted? +If Providence, which gives wine and oil, had blessed us with that +tolerant spirit which makes the countenance more pleasant and the heart +more glad than these can do; if our Statute Book had never been defiled +with such infamous laws, the sepulchral Spencer Perceval would have been +hauled through the dirtiest horse-pond in Hampstead, had he ventured to +propose them. But now persecution is good, because it exists; every law +which originated in ignorance and malice, and gratifies the passions from +whence it sprang, we call the wisdom of our ancestors: when such laws are +repealed, they will be cruelty and madness; till they are repealed, they +are policy and caution. + +I was somewhat amused with the imputation brought against the Catholics +by the University of Oxford, that they are enemies to liberty. I +immediately turned to my “History of England,” and marked as an +historical error that passage in which it is recorded that, in the reign +of Queen Anne, the famous degree of the University of Oxford respecting +passive obedience, was ordered by the House of Lords to be burnt by the +hands of the common hangman, as contrary to the liberty of the subject +and the law of the land. Nevertheless, I wish, whatever be the modesty +of those who impute, that the imputation was a little more true, the +Catholic cause would not be quite so desperate with the present. +Administration. I fear, however, that the hatred to liberty in these +poor devoted wretches may ere long appear more doubtful than it is at +present to the Vice-Chancellor and his Clergy, inflamed as they doubtless +are with classical examples of republican virtue, and panting, as they +always have been, to reduce the power of the Crown within narrower and +safer limits. What mistaken zeal to attempt to connect one religion with +freedom and another with slavery! Who laid the foundations of English +liberty? What was the mixed religion of Switzerland? What has the +Protestant religion done for liberty in Denmark, in Sweden, throughout +the north of Germany, and in Prussia? The purest religion in the world, +in my humble opinion, is the religion of the Church of England: for its +preservation (so far as it is exercised without intruding upon the +liberties of others) I am ready at this moment to venture my present +life, and but through that religion I have no hopes of any other; yet I +am not forced to be silly because I am pious; nor will I ever join in +eulogiums on my faith which every man of common reading and common sense +can so easily refute. + +You have either done too much for the Catholics, worthy Abraham, or too +little; if you had intended to refuse them political power, you should +have refused them civil rights. After you had enabled them to acquire +property, after you had conceded to them all that you did concede in ’78 +and ’93, the rest is wholly out of your power: you may choose whether you +will give the rest in an honourable or a disgraceful mode, but it is +utterly out of your power to withhold it. + +In the last year, land to the amount of _eight hundred thousand pounds_ +was purchased by the Catholics in Ireland. Do you think it possible to +be-Perceval, and be-Canning, and be-Castlereagh, such a body of men as +this out of their common rights, and their common sense? Mr. George +Canning may laugh and joke at the idea of Protestant bailiffs ravishing +Catholic ladies, under the 9th clause of the Sunset Bill; but if some +better remedy be not applied to the distractions of Ireland than the +jocularity of Mr. Canning, they will soon put an end to his pension, and +to the pension of those “near and dear relatives,” for whose eating, +drinking, washing, and clothing, every man in the United Kingdoms now +pays his two-pence or three-pence a year. You may call these +observations coarse, if you please; but I have no idea that the Sophias +and Carolines of any man breathing are to eat national veal, to drink +public tea, to wear Treasury ribands, and then that we are to be told +that it is coarse to animadvert upon this pitiful and eleemosynary +splendour. If this is right, why not mention it? If it is wrong, why +should not he who enjoys the ease of supporting his sisters in this +manner bear the shame of it? Everybody seems hitherto to have spared a +man who never spares anybody. + +As for the enormous wax candles, and superstitious mummeries, and painted +jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear them not. Tell me that the world +will return again under the influence of the smallpox; that Lord +Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power of the Court; that Lord +Howick and Mr. Grattan will do each of them a mean and dishonourable +action; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale speak once will +knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has assented to +the fact of two and two making four, without shedding tears, or +expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other thing absurd +or incredible, but, for the love of common sense, let me hear no more of +the danger to be apprehended from the general diffusion of Popery. It is +too absurd to be reasoned upon; every man feels it is nonsense when he +hears it stated, and so does every man while he is stating it. + +I cannot imagine why the friends to the Church Establishment should enter +in such a horror of seeing the doors of Parliament flung open to the +Catholics, and view so passively the enjoyment of that right by the +Presbyterians and by every other species of Dissenter. In their tenets, +in their Church Government, in the nature of their endowments, the +Dissenters are infinitely more distant from the Church of England than +the Catholics are; yet the Dissenters have never been excluded from +Parliament. There are 45 members in one House, and 16 in the other, who +always are Dissenters. There is no law which would prevent every member +of the Lords and Commons from being Dissenters. The Catholics could not +bring into Parliament half the number of the Scotch members; and yet one +exclusion is of such immense importance, because it has taken place; and +the other no human being thinks of, because no one is accustomed to it. +I have often thought, if the _wisdom of our ancestors_ had excluded all +persons with red hair from the House of Commons, of the throes and +convulsions it would occasion to restore them to their natural rights. +What mobs and riots would it produce! To what infinite abuse and obloquy +would the capillary patriot be exposed; what wormwood would distil from +Mr. Perceval, what froth would drop from Mr. Canning; how (I will not say +_my_, but _our_ Lord Hawkesbury, for he belongs to us all)—how our Lord +Hawkesbury would work away about the hair of King William and Lord +Somers, and the authors of the great and glorious Revolution; how Lord +Eldon would appeal to the Deity and his own virtues, and to the hair of +his children: some would say that red-haired men were superstitious; some +would prove they were atheists; they would be petitioned against as the +friends of slavery, and the advocates for revolt; in short, such a +corruptor of the heart and understanding is the spirit of persecution, +that these unfortunate people (conspired against by their fellow-subjects +of every complexion), if they did not emigrate to countries where hair of +another colour was persecuted, would be driven to the falsehood of +perukes, or the hypocrisy of the Tricosian fluid. + +As for the dangers of the Church (in spite of the staggering events which +have lately taken place), I have not yet entirely lost my confidence in +the power of common sense, and I believe the Church to be in no danger at +all; but if it is, that danger is not from the Catholics, but from the +Methodists, and from that patent Christianity which has been for some +time manufacturing at Clapham, to the prejudice of the old and admirable +article prepared by the Church. I would counsel my lords the Bishops to +keep their eyes upon that holy village, and its vicinity; they will find +there a zeal in making converts far superior to anything which exists +among the Catholics; a contempt for the great mass of English clergy, +much more rooted and profound; and a regular fund to purchase livings for +those groaning and garrulous gentlemen whom they denominate (by a +standing sarcasm against the regular Church) Gospel preachers and vital +clergymen. I am too firm a believer in the general propriety and +respectability of the English clergy, to believe they have much to fear +either from old nonsense or from new; but if the Church must be supposed +to be in danger, I prefer that nonsense which is grown half venerable +from time, the force of which I have already tried and baffled, which at +least has some excuse in the dark and ignorant ages in which it +originated. The religious enthusiasm manufactured by living men before +my own eyes disgusts my understanding as much, influences my imagination +not at all, and excites my apprehensions much more. + +I may have seemed to you to treat the situation of public affairs with +some degree of levity; but I feel it deeply, and with nightly and daily +anguish; because I know Ireland; I have known it all my life; I love it, +and I foresee the crisis to which it will soon be exposed. Who can doubt +but that Ireland will experience ultimately from France a treatment to +which the conduct they have experienced from England is the love of a +parent, or a brother? Who can doubt but that five years after he has got +hold of the country, Ireland will be tossed away by Bonaparte as a +present to some one of his ruffian generals, who will knock the head of +Mr. Keogh against the head of Cardinal Troy, shoot twenty of the most +noisy blockheads of the Roman persuasion, wash his pug-dogs in holy +water, and confiscate the salt butter of the Milesian republic to the +last tub? But what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to +heed it? or when had common sense much influence with my poor dear Irish? +Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I know them, and I know that at +every rash and mad hazard they will break the Union, revenge their +wounded pride and their insulted religion, and fling themselves into the +open arms of France, sure of dying in the embrace. And now, what means +have you of guarding against this coming evil, upon which the future +happiness or misery of every Englishman depends? Have you a single ally +in the whole world? Is there a vulnerable point in the French empire +where the astonishing resources of that people can be attracted and +employed? Have you a ministry wise enough to comprehend the danger, +manly enough to believe unpleasant intelligence, honest enough to state +their apprehensions at the peril of their places? Is there anywhere the +slightest disposition to join any measure of love, or conciliation, or +hope, with that dreadful bill which the distractions of Ireland have +rendered necessary? At the very moment that the last Monarchy in Europe +has fallen, are we not governed by a man of pleasantry, and a man of +theology? In the six hundredth year of our empire over Ireland, have we +any memorial of ancient kindness to refer to? any people, any zeal, any +country on which we can depend? Have we any hope, but in the winds of +heaven and the tides of the sea? any prayer to prefer to the Irish, but +that they should forget and forgive their oppressors, who, in the very +moment that they are calling upon them for their exertions, solemnly +assure them that the oppression shall still remain? + +Abraham, farewell! If I have tired you, remember how often you have +tired me and others. I do not think we really differ in politics so much +as you suppose; or at least, if we do, that difference is in the means, +and not in the end. We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and +abhor the French. But though you love the Constitution, you would +perpetuate the abuses which have been engrafted upon it; though you +respect the King, you would confirm his scruples against the Catholics; +though you abhor the French, you would open to them the conquest of +Ireland. My method of respecting my sovereign is by protecting his +honour, his empire, and his lasting happiness; I evince my love of the +Constitution by making it the guardian of all men’s rights and the source +of their freedom; and I prove my abhorrence of the French, by uniting +against them the disciples of every church in the only remaining nation +in Europe. As for the men of whom I have been compelled in this age of +mediocrity to say so much, they cannot of themselves be worth a moment’s +consideration, to you, to me, or to anybody. In a year after their death +they will be forgotten as completely as if they had never been; and are +now of no further importance than as they are the mere vehicles of +carrying into effect the common-place and mischievous prejudices of the +times in which they live. + + + +LETTER VI. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—What amuses me the most is to hear of the _indulgences_ +which the Catholics have received, and their exorbitance in not being +satisfied with those indulgences: now if you complain to me that a man is +obtrusive and shameless in his requests, and that it is impossible to +bring him to reason, I must first of all hear the whole of your conduct +towards him; for you may have taken from him so much in the first +instance that, in spite of a long series of restitution, a vast latitude +for petition may still remain behind. + +There is a village, no matter where, in which the inhabitants, on one day +in the year, sit down to a dinner prepared at the common expense: by an +extraordinary piece of tyranny, which Lord Hawkesbury would call the +wisdom of the village ancestors, the inhabitants of three of the streets, +about a hundred years ago, seized upon the inhabitants of the fourth +street, bound them hand and foot, laid them upon their backs, and +compelled them to look on while the rest were stuffing themselves with +beef and beer; the next year the inhabitants of the persecuted street, +though they contributed an equal quota of the expense, were treated +precisely in the same manner. The tyranny grew into a custom; and, as +the manner of our nature is, it was considered as the most sacred of all +duties to keep these poor fellows without their annual dinner. The +village was so tenacious of this practice, that nothing could induce them +to resign it; every enemy to it was looked upon as a disbeliever in +Divine Providence, and any nefarious churchwarden who wished to succeed +in his election had nothing to do but to represent his antagonist as an +abolitionist, in order to frustrate his ambition, endanger his life, and +throw the village into a state of the most dreadful commotion. By +degrees, however, the obnoxious street grew to be so well peopled, and +its inhabitants so firmly united, that their oppressors, more afraid of +injustice, were more disposed to be just. At the next dinner they are +unbound, the year after allowed to sit upright, then a bit of bread and a +glass of water; till at last, after a long series of concessions, they +are emboldened to ask, in pretty plain terms, that they may be allowed to +sit down at the bottom of the table, and to fill their bellies as well as +the rest. Forthwith a general cry of shame and scandal: “Ten years ago, +were you not laid upon your backs? Don’t you remember what a great thing +you thought it to get a piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese +parings? Have you forgotten that memorable era, when the lord of the +manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding? And +now, with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you have the +impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too plain +to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest, and be +indulged even with beef and beer: there are not more than half a dozen +dishes which we have reserved for ourselves; the rest has been thrown +open to you in the utmost profusion; you have potatoes, and carrots, suet +dumplings, sops in the pan, and delicious toast and water in incredible +quantities. Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are ours; and if you were +not the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would never +think of aspiring to enjoy them.” + +Is not this, my dainty Abraham, the very nonsense and the very insult +which is talked to and practised upon the Catholics? You are surprised +that men who have tasted of partial justice should ask for perfect +justice; that he who has been robbed of coat and cloak will not be +contented with the restitution of one of his garments. He would be a +very lazy blockhead if he were content, and I (who, though an inhabitant +of the village, have preserved, thank God, some sense of justice) most +earnestly counsel these half-fed claimants to persevere in their just +demands, till they are admitted to a more complete share of a dinner for +which they pay as much as the others; and if they see a little attenuated +lawyer squabbling at the head of their opponents, let them desire him to +empty his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and +pudding which he has filched from the public feast, to carry home to his +wife and children. + +You parade a great deal upon the vast concessions made by this country to +the Irish before the Union. I deny that any voluntary concession was +ever made by England to Ireland. What did Ireland ever ask that was +granted? What did she ever demand that was not refused? How did she get +her Mutiny Bill—a limited Parliament—a repeal of Poyning’s Law—a +constitution? Not by the concessions of England, but by her fears. When +Ireland asked for all these things upon her knees, her petitions were +rejected with Percevalism and contempt; when she demanded them with the +voice of 60,000 armed men, they were granted with every mark of +consternation and dismay. Ask of Lord Auckland the fatal consequences of +trifling with such a people as the Irish. He himself was the organ of +these refusals. As secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, the insolence and +the tyranny of this country passed through his hands. Ask him if he +remembers the consequences. Ask him if he has forgotten that memorable +evening when he came down booted and mantled to the House of Commons, +when he told the House he was about to set off for Ireland that night, +and declared before God, if he did not carry with him a compliance with +all their demands, Ireland was for ever lost to this country. The +present generation have forgotten this; but I have not forgotten it; and +I know, hasty and undignified as the submission of England then was, that +Lord Auckland was right, that the delay of a single day might very +probably have separated the two peoples for ever. The terms submission +and fear are galling terms when applied from the lesser nation to the +greater; but it is the plain historical truth, it is the natural +consequence of injustice, it is the predicament in which every country +places itself which leaves such a mass of hatred and discontent by its +side. No empire is powerful enough to endure it; it would exhaust the +strength of China, and sink it with all its mandarins and tea-kettles to +the bottom of the deep. By refusing them justice now when you are strong +enough to refuse them anything more than justice, you will act over +again, with the Catholics, the same scene of mean and precipitate +submission which disgraced you before America, and before the volunteers +of Ireland. We shall live to hear the Hampstead Protestant pronouncing +such extravagant panegyrics upon holy water, and paying such fulsome +compliments to the thumbs and offals of departed saints, that parties +will change sentiments, and Lord Henry Petty and Sam Whitbread take a +spell at No Popery. The wisdom of Mr. Fox was alike employed in teaching +his country justice when Ireland was weak, and dignity when Ireland was +strong. We are fast pacing round the same miserable circle of ruin and +imbecility. Alas! where is our guide? + +You say that Ireland is a millstone about our necks; that it would be +better for us if Ireland were sunk at the bottom of the sea; that the +Irish are a nation of irreclaimable savages and barbarians. How often +have I heard these sentiments fall from the plump and thoughtless squire, +and from the thriving English shopkeeper, who has never felt the rod of +an Orange master upon his back. Ireland a millstone about your neck! +Why is it not a stone of Ajax in your hand? I agree with you most +cordially that, governed as Ireland now is, it would be a vast accession +of strength if the waves of the sea were to rise and engulf her +to-morrow. At this moment, opposed as we are to all the world, the +annihilation of one of the most fertile islands on the face of the globe, +containing five millions of human creatures, would be one of the most +solid advantages which could happen to this country. I doubt very much, +in spite of all the just abuse which has been lavished upon Bonaparte, +whether there is any one of his conquered countries the blotting out of +which would be as beneficial to him as the destruction of Ireland would +be to us: of countries I speak differing in language from the French, +little habituated to their intercourse, and inflamed with all the +resentments of a recently-conquered people. Why will you attribute the +turbulence of our people to any cause but the right—to any cause but your +own scandalous oppression? If you tie your horse up to a gate, and beat +him cruelly, is he vicious because he kicks you? If you have plagued and +worried a mastiff dog for years, is he mad because he flies at you +whenever he sees you? Hatred is an active, troublesome passion. Depend +upon it, whole nations have always some reason for their hatred. Before +you refer the turbulence of the Irish to incurable defects in their +character, tell me if you have treated them as friends and equals? Have +you protected their commerce? Have you respected their religion? Have +you been as anxious for their freedom as your own? Nothing of all this. +What then? Why you have confiscated the territorial surface of the +country twice over: you have massacred and exported her inhabitants: you +have deprived four-fifths of them of every civil privilege: you have at +every period made her commerce and manufactures slavishly subordinate to +your own: and yet the hatred which the Irish bear to you is the result of +an original turbulence of character, and of a primitive, obdurate +wildness, utterly incapable of civilisation. The embroidered inanities +and the sixth-form effusions of Mr. Canning are really not powerful +enough to make me believe this; nor is there any authority on earth +(always excepting the Dean of Christ Church) which could make it credible +to me. I am sick of Mr. Canning. There is not a “ha’porth of bread to +all this sugar and sack.” I love not the cretaceous and incredible +countenance of his colleague. The only opinion in which I agree with +these two gentlemen is that which they entertain of each other. I am +sure that the insolence of Mr. Pitt, and the unbalanced accounts of +Melville, were far better than the perils of this new ignorance:— + + Nonne fuit satiùs, ristes Amaryllidis iras + Atque superba pati fastidia? nonne Menalcan? + Quamvis ille _niger_? + +In the midst of the most profound peace, the secret articles of the +Treaty of Tilsit, in which the destruction of Ireland is resolved upon, +induce you to rob the Danes of their fleet. After the expedition sailed +comes the Treaty of Tilsit, containing no article, public or private, +alluding to Ireland. The state of the world, you tell me, justified us +in doing this. Just God! do we think only of the state of the world when +there is an opportunity for robbery, for murder, and for plunder; and do +we forget the state of the world when we are called upon to be wise, and +good, and just? Does the state of the world never remind us that we have +four millions of subjects whose injuries we ought to atone for, and whose +affections we ought to conciliate? Does the state of the world never +warn us to lay aside our infernal bigotry, and to arm every man who +acknowledges a God, and can grasp a sword? Did it never occur to this +administration that they might virtuously get hold of a force ten times +greater than the force of the Danish fleet? Was there no other way of +protecting Ireland but by bringing eternal shame upon Great Britain, and +by making the earth a den of robbers? See what the men whom you have +supplanted would have done. They would have rendered the invasion of +Ireland impossible, by restoring to the Catholics their long-lost rights: +they would have acted in such a manner that the French would neither have +wished for invasion nor dared to attempt it: they would have increased +the permanent strength of the country while they preserved its reputation +unsullied. Nothing of this kind your friends have done, because they are +solemnly pledged to do nothing of this kind; because, to tolerate all +religions, and to equalise civil rights to all sects, is to oppose some +of the worst passions of our nature—to plunder and to oppress is to +gratify them all. They wanted the huzzas of mobs, and they have for ever +blasted the fame of England to obtain them. Were the fleets of Holland, +France, and Spain destroyed by larceny? You resisted the power of 150 +sail of the line by sheer courage, and violated every principle of morals +from the dread of fifteen hulks, while the expedition itself cost you +three times more than the value of the larcenous matter brought away. +The French trample on the laws of God and man, not for old cordage, but +for kingdoms, and always take care to be well paid for their crimes. We +contrive, under the present administration, to unite moral with +intellectual deficiency, and to grow weaker and worse by the same action. +If they had any evidence of the intended hostility of the Danes, why was +it not produced? Why have the nations of Europe been allowed to feel an +indignation against this country beyond the reach of all subsequent +information? Are these times, do you imagine, when we can trifle with a +year of universal hatred, dally with the curses of Europe, and then +regain a lost character at pleasure, by the parliamentary perspirations +of the Foreign Secretary, or the solemn asseverations of the pecuniary +Rose? Believe me, Abraham, it is not under such ministers as these that +the dexterity of honest Englishmen will ever equal the dexterity of +French knaves; it is not in their presence that the serpent of Moses will +ever swallow up the serpents of the magician. + +Lord Hawkesbury says that nothing is to be granted to the Catholics from +fear. What! not even justice? Why not? There are four millions of +disaffected people within twenty miles of your own coast. I fairly +confess that the dread which I have of their physical power is with me a +very strong motive for listening to their claims. To talk of not acting +from fear, is mere parliamentary cant. From what motive but fear, I +should be glad to know, have all the improvements in our constitution +proceeded? I question if any justice has ever been done to large masses +of mankind from any other motive. By what other motives can the +plunderers of the Baltic suppose nations to be governed in their +intercourse _with each other_? If I say, Give this people what they ask +because it is just, do you think I should get ten people to listen to me? +Would not the lesser of the two Jenkinsons be the first to treat me with +contempt? The only true way to make the mass of mankind see the beauty +of justice is by showing to them, in pretty plain terms, the consequences +of injustice. If any body of French troops land in Ireland, the whole +population of that country will rise against you to a man, and you could +not possibly survive such an event three years. Such, from the bottom of +my soul, do I believe to be the present state of that country; and so far +does it appear to me to be impolitic and unstatesman-like to concede +anything to such a danger, that if the Catholics, in addition to their +present just demands, were to petition for the perpetual removal of the +said Lord Hawkesbury from his Majesty’s councils, I think, whatever might +be the effect upon the destinies of Europe, and however it might retard +our own individual destruction, that the prayer of the petition should be +instantly complied with. Canning’s crocodile tears should not move me; +the hoops of the maids of honour should not hide him. I would tear him +from the banisters of the back stairs, and plunge him in the fishy fumes +of the dirtiest of all his Cinque Ports. + + + +LETTER VII. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—In the correspondence which is passing between us, you are +perpetually alluding to the Foreign Secretary; and in answer to the +dangers of Ireland, which I am pressing upon your notice, you have +nothing to urge but the confidence which you repose in the discretion and +sound sense of this gentleman. I can only say, that I have listened to +him long and often with the greatest attention; I have used every +exertion in my power to take a fair measure of him, and it appears to me +impossible to hear him upon any arduous topic without perceiving that he +is eminently deficient in those solid and serious qualities upon which, +and upon which alone, the confidence of a great country can properly +repose. He sweats and labours, and works for sense, and Mr. Ellis seems +always to think it is coming, but it does not come; the machine can’t +draw up what is not to be found in the spring; Providence has made him a +light, jesting, paragraph-writing man, and that he will remain to his +dying day. When he is jocular he is strong, when he is serious he is +like Samson in a wig; any ordinary person is a match for him: a song, an +ironical letter, a burlesque ode, an attack in the newspaper upon +Nicoll’s eye, a smart speech of twenty minutes, full of gross +misrepresentations and clever turns, excellent language, a spirited +manner, lucky quotation, success in provoking dull men, some half +information picked up in Pall Mall in the morning; these are your +friend’s natural weapons; all these things he can do: here I allow him to +be truly great; nay, I will be just, and go still further, if he would +confine himself to these things, and consider the _facete_ and the +playful to be the basis of his character, he would, for that species of +man, be universally regarded as a person of a very good understanding; +call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a +great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to +teach bees to make honey. That he is an extraordinary writer of small +poetry, and a diner out of the highest lustre, I do most readily admit. +After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for +this half-century. The Foreign Secretary is a gentleman, a respectable +as well as a highly agreeable man in private life; but you may as well +feed me with decayed potatoes as console me for the miseries of Ireland +by the resources of his _sense_ and his _discretion_. It is only the +public situation which this gentleman holds which entitles me or induces +me to say so much about him. He is a fly in amber, nobody cares about +the fly; the only question is, How the devil did it get there? Nor do I +attack him for the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a +burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a +province. + +The friends of the Catholic question are, I observe, extremely +embarrassed in arguing when they come to the loyalty of the Irish +Catholics. As for me, I shall go straight forward to my object, and +state what I have no manner of doubt, from an intimate knowledge of +Ireland, to be the plain truth. Of the great Roman Catholic proprietors, +and of the Catholic prelates, there may be a few, and but a few, who +would follow the fortunes of England at all events: there is another set +of men who, thoroughly detesting this country, have too much property and +too much character to lose, not to wait for some very favourable event +before they show themselves; but the great mass of Catholic population, +upon the slightest appearance of a French force in that country, would +rise upon you to a man. It is the most mistaken policy to conceal the +plain truth. There is no loyalty among the Catholics: they detest you as +their worst oppressors, and they will continue to detest you till you +remove the cause of their hatred. It is in your power in six months’ +time to produce a total revolution of opinions among this people; and in +some future letter I will show you that this is clearly the case. At +present, see what a dreadful in state Ireland is in. The common toast +among the low Irish is, the feast of the _passover_. Some allusion to +_Bonaparte_, in a play lately acted at Dublin, produced thunders of +applause from the pit and the galleries; and a politician should not be +inattentive to the public feelings expressed in theatres. Mr. Perceval +thinks he has disarmed the Irish: he has no more disarmed the Irish than +he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish +peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters up +the lock, buries it in a bog, and allows the Orange bloodhound to ransack +his cottage at pleasure. Be just and kind to the Irish, and you will +indeed disarm them; rescue them from the degraded servitude in which they +are held by a handful of their own countrymen, and you will add four +millions of brave and affectionate men to your strength. Nightly visits, +Protestant inspectors, licenses to possess a pistol, or a knife and fork, +the odious vigour of the _evangelical_ Perceval—acts of Parliament, drawn +up by some English attorney, to save you from the hatred of four millions +of people—the guarding yourselves from universal disaffection by a +police; a confidence in the little cunning of Bow Street, when you might +rest your security upon the eternal basis of the best feelings: this is +the meanness and madness to which nations are reduced when they lose +sight of the first elements of justice, without which a country can be no +more secure than it can be healthy without air. I sicken at such policy +and such men. The fact is, the Ministers know nothing about the present +state of Ireland; Mr. Perceval sees a few clergymen, Lord Castlereagh a +few general officers, who take care, of course, to report what is +pleasant rather than what is true. As for the joyous and lepid consul, +he jokes upon neutral flags and frauds, jokes upon Irish rebels, jokes +upon northern and western and southern foes, and gives himself no trouble +upon any subject; nor is the mediocrity of the idolatrous deputy of the +slightest use. Dissolved in grins, he reads no memorials upon the state +of Ireland, listens to no reports, asks no questions, and is the + + “_Bourn_ from whom no traveller returns.” + +The danger of an immediate insurrection is now, I _believe_, blown over. +You have so strong an army in Ireland, and the Irish are become so much +more cunning from the last insurrection, that you may perhaps be +tolerably secure just at present from that evil: but are you secure from +the efforts which the French may make to throw a body of troops into +Ireland? and do you consider that event to be difficult and improbable? +From Brest Harbour to Cape St. Vincent, you have above three thousand +miles of hostile sea coast, and twelve or fourteen harbours quite capable +of containing a sufficient force for the powerful invasion of Ireland. +The nearest of these harbours is not two days’ sail from the southern +coast of Ireland, with a fair leading wind; and the furthest not ten. +Five ships of the line, for so very short a passage, might carry five or +six thousand troops with cannon and ammunition; and Ireland presents to +their attack a southern coast of more than 500 miles, abounding in deep +bays, admirable harbours, and disaffected inhabitants. Your blockading +ships may be forced to come home for provisions and repairs, or they may +be blown off in a gale of wind and compelled to bear away for their own +coast; and you will observe that the very same wind which locks you up in +the British Channel, when you are got there, is evidently favourable for +the invasion of Ireland. And yet this is called Government, and the +people huzza Mr. Perceval for continuing to expose his country day after +day to such tremendous perils as these; cursing the men who would have +given up a question in theology to have saved us from such a risk. The +British empire at this moment is in the state of a peach-blossom—if the +wind blows gently from one quarter, it survives; if furiously from the +other, it perishes. A stiff breeze may set in from the north, the +Rochefort squadron will be taken, and the Minister will be the most holy +of men: if it comes from some other point, Ireland is gone; we curse +ourselves as a set of monastic madmen, and call out for the unavailing +satisfaction of Mr. Perceval’s head. Such a state of political existence +is scarcely credible: it is the action of a mad young fool standing upon +one foot, and peeping down the crater of Mount Ætna, not the conduct of a +wise and sober people deciding upon their best and dearest interests: and +in the name, the much-injured name, of heaven, what is it all for that we +expose ourselves to these dangers? Is it that we may sell more muslin? +Is it that we may acquire more territory? Is it that we may strengthen +what we have already acquired? No; nothing of all this; but that one set +of Irishmen may torture another set of Irishmen—that Sir Phelim +O’Callaghan may continue to whip Sir Toby M’Tackle, his next door +neighbour, and continue to ravish his Catholic daughters; and these are +the measures which the honest and consistent Secretary supports; and this +is the Secretary whose genius in the estimation of Brother Abraham is to +extinguish the genius of Bonaparte. Pompey was killed by a slave, +Goliath smitten by a stripling, Pyrrhus died by the hand of a woman; +tremble, thou great Gaul, from whose head an armed Minerva leaps forth in +the hour of danger; tremble, thou scourge of God, a pleasant man is come +out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he +shall talk his pleasant talk against thee, and thou shalt be no more! + +You tell me, in spite of all this parade of sea-coast, Bonaparte has +neither ships nor sailors: but this is a mistake. He has not ships and +sailors to contest the empire of the seas with Great Britain, but there +remains quite sufficient of the navies of France, Spain, Holland, and +Denmark, for these short excursions and invasions. Do you think, too, +that Bonaparte does not add to his navy every year? Do you suppose, with +all Europe at his feet, that he can find any difficulty in obtaining +timber, and that money will not procure for him any quantity of naval +stores he may want? The mere machine, the empty ship, he can build as +well, and as quickly, as you can; and though he may not find enough of +practised sailors to man large fighting-fleets—it is not possible to +conceive that he can want sailors for such sort of purposes as I have +stated. He is at present the despotic monarch of above twenty thousand +miles of sea-coast, and yet you suppose he cannot procure sailors for the +invasion of Ireland. Believe, if you please, that such a fleet met at +sea by any number of our ships at all comparable to them in point of +force, would be immediately taken, let it be so; I count nothing upon +their power of resistance, only upon their power of escaping unobserved. +If experience has taught us anything, it is the impossibility of +perpetual blockades. The instances are innumerable, during the course of +this war, where whole fleets have sailed in and out of harbour, in spite +of every vigilance used to prevent it. I shall only mention those cases +where Ireland is concerned. In December, 1796, seven ships of the line, +and ten transports, reached Bantry Bay from Brest, without having seen an +English ship in their passage. It blew a storm when they were off shore, +and therefore England still continues to be an independent kingdom. You +will observe that at the very time the French fleet sailed out of Brest +Harbour, Admiral Colpoys was cruising off there with a powerful squadron, +and still, from the particular circumstances of the weather, found it +impossible to prevent the French from coming out. During the time that +Admiral Colpoys was cruising off Brest, Admiral Richery, with six ships +of the line, passed him, and got safe into the harbour. At the very +moment when the French squadron was lying in Bantry Bay, Lord Bridport +with his fleet was locked up by a foul wind in the Channel, and for +several days could not stir to the assistance of Ireland. Admiral +Colpoys, totally unable to find the French fleet, came home. Lord +Bridport, at the change of the wind, cruised for them in vain, and they +got safe back to Brest, without having seen a single one of those +floating bulwarks, the possession of which we believe will enable us with +impunity to set justice and common sense at defiance. + +Such is the miserable and precarious state of an anemocracy, of a people +who put their trust in hurricanes, and are governed by wind. In August, +1798, three forty-gun frigates landed 1,100 men under Humbert, making the +passage from Rochelle to Killala without seeing any English ship. In +October of the same year, four French frigates anchored in Killala Bay +with 2,000 troops; and though they did not land their troops, they +returned to France in safety. In the same month, a line-of-battle ship, +eight stout frigates, and a brig, all full of troops and stores, reached +the coast of Ireland, and were fortunately, in sight of land, destroyed, +after an obstinate engagement, by Sir John Warren. + +If you despise the little troop which, in these numerous experiments, did +make good its landing, take with you, if you please, this _prècis_ of its +exploits: eleven hundred men, commanded by a soldier raised from the +ranks, put to rout a select army of 6,000 men, commanded by General Lake, +seized their ordnance, ammunition, and stores, advanced 150 miles into a +country containing an armed force of 150,000 men, and at last surrendered +to the Viceroy, an experienced general, gravely and cautiously advancing +at the head of all his chivalry and of an immense army to oppose him. +You must excuse these details about Ireland, but it appears to me to be +of all other subjects the most important. If we conciliate Ireland, we +can do nothing amiss; if we do not, we can do nothing well. If Ireland +was friendly, we might equally set at defiance the talents of Bonaparte +and the blunders of his rival, Mr. Canning; we could then support the +ruinous and silly bustle of our useless expeditions, and the almost +incredible ignorance of our commercial orders in council. Let the +present administration give up but this one point, and there is nothing +which I would not consent to grant them. Mr. Perceval shall have full +liberty to insult the tomb of Mr. Fox, and to torment every eminent +Dissenter in Great Britain; Lord Camden shall have large boxes of plums; +Mr. Rose receive permission to prefix to his name the appellative of +virtuous; and to the Viscount Castlereagh a round sum of ready money +shall be well and truly paid into his hand. Lastly, what remains to Mr. +George Canning, but that he ride up and down Pall Mall glorious upon a +white horse, and that they cry out before him, Thus shall it be done to +the statesman who hath written “The Needy Knife-Grinder,” and the German +play? Adieu only for the present; you shall soon hear from me again; it +is a subject upon which I cannot long be silent. + + + + +LETTER VIII. + + +NOTHING can be more erroneous than to suppose that Ireland is not bigger +than the Isle of Wight, or of more consequence than Guernsey or Jersey; +and yet I am almost inclined to believe, from the general supineness +which prevails here respecting the dangerous state of that country, that +such is the rank which it holds in our statistical tables. I have been +writing to you a great deal about Ireland, and perhaps it may be of some +use to state to you concisely the nature and resources of the country +which has been the subject of our long and strange correspondence. There +were returned, as I have before observed, to the hearth tax in 1791, +701,102 houses, which Mr. Newenham shows from unquestionable documents to +be nearly 80,000 below the real number of houses in that country. There +are 27,457 square English miles in Ireland, and more than five millions +of people. + +By the last survey it appears that the inhabited houses in England and +Wales amount to 1,574,902, and the population to 9,343,578, which gives +an average of 5.875 to each house, in a country where the density of +population is certainly less considerable than in Ireland. It is +commonly supposed that two-fifths of the army and navy are Irishmen, at +periods when political disaffection does not avert the Catholics from the +service. The current value of Irish exports in 1807 was £9,314,854 17s. +7d.; a state of commerce about equal to the commerce of England in the +middle of the reign of George II. The tonnage of ships entered inward +and cleared outward in the trade of Ireland, in 1807, amounted to +1,567,430 tons. The quantity of home spirits exported amounted to 10,284 +gallons in 1796, and to 930,800 gallons in 1804. Of the exports which I +have stated, provisions amounted to four millions, and linen to about +four millions and a half. There was exported from Ireland, upon an +average of two years ending in January, 1804, 591,274 barrels of barley, +oats, and wheat; and by weight 910,848 cwts. of flour, oatmeal, barley, +oats, and wheat. The amount of butter exported in 1804, from Ireland, +was worth, in money, £1,704,680 sterling. The importation of ale and +beer, from the immense manufactures now carrying on of these articles, +was diminished to 3,209 barrels, in the year 1804, from 111,920 barrels, +which was the average importation per annum, taking from three years +ending in 1792; and at present there is an export trade of porter. On an +average of three years, ending March, 1783, there were imported into +Ireland, of cotton wool, 3,326 cwts., of cotton yarn, 5,405 lbs.; but on +an average of three years, ending January, 1803, there were imported, of +the first article, 13,159 cwts., and of the latter, 628,406 lbs. It is +impossible to conceive any manufacture more flourishing. The export of +linen has increased in Ireland from 17,776,862 yards, the average in +1770, to 43,534,971 yards, the amount in 1805. The tillage of Ireland +has more than trebled within the last twenty-one years. The importation +of coals has increased from 230,000 tons in 1783, to 417,030 in 1804; of +tobacco, from 3,459,861 lbs. in 1783, to 6,611,543 in 1804; of tea, from +1,703,855 lbs. in 1783, to 3,358,256 in 1804; of sugar, from 143,117 +cwts. in 1782, to 309,076 in 1804. Ireland now supports a funded debt of +above 64 millions, and it is computed that more than three millions’ of +money are annually remitted to Irish absentees resident in this country. +In Mr. Foster’s report, of 100 folio pages, presented to the House of +Commons in the year 1806, the total expenditure of Ireland is stated at +£9,760,013. Ireland has increased about two-thirds in its population +within twenty-five years, and yet, and in about the same space of time, +its exports of beef, bullocks, cows, pork, swine, butter, wheat, barley, +and oats, collectively taken, have doubled; and this, in spite of two +years’ famine, and the presence of an immense army, that is always at +hand to guard the most valuable appanage of our empire from joining our +most inveterate enemies. Ireland has the greatest possible facilities +for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a +circuit of 750 miles, 66 secure harbours, and presents a western frontier +against Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the +Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance from 20 to 100 miles; so +that the subjugation of Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and +soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with all its +sinuosities, to more than 700 miles—an addition of polemics, in our +present state of hostility with all the world, which must highly gratify +the vigorists, and give them an ample opportunity of displaying that +foolish energy upon which their claims to distinction are founded. Such +is the country which the Right Reverend the Chancellor of the Exchequer +would drive into the arms of France, and for the conciliation of which we +are requested to wait, as if it were one of those sinecure places which +were given to Mr. Perceval snarling at the breast, and which cannot be +abolished till his decease. + +How sincerely and fervently have I often wished that the Emperor of the +French had thought as Mr. Spencer Perceval does upon the subject of +government; that he had entertained doubts and scruples upon the +propriety of admitting the Protestants to an equality of rights with the +Catholics, and that he had left in the middle of his empire these +vigorous seeds of hatred and disaffection! But the world was never yet +conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first measures we saw him +recurring to was the complete establishment of religious liberty: if his +subjects fought and paid as he pleased, he allowed them to believe as +they pleased: the moment I saw this, my best hopes were lost. I +perceived in a moment the kind of man we had to do with. I was well +aware of the miserable ignorance and folly of this country upon the +subject of toleration; and every year has been adding to the success of +that game, which it was clear he had the will and the ability to play +against us. + +You say Bonaparte is not in earnest upon the subject of religion, and +that this is the cause of his tolerant spirit; but is it possible you can +intend to give us such dreadful and unamiable notions of religion. Are +we to understand that the moment a man is sincere he is narrow-minded; +that persecution is the child of belief; and that a desire to leave all +men in the quiet and unpunished exercise of their own creed can only +exist in the mind of an infidel? Thank God! I know many men whose +principles are as firm as they are expanded, who cling tenaciously to +their own modification of the Christian faith, without the slightest +disposition to force that modification upon other people. If Bonaparte +is liberal in subjects of religion because he has no religion, is this a +reason why we should be illiberal because we are Christians? If he owes +this excellent quality to a vice, is that any reason why we may not owe +it to a virtue? Toleration is a great good, and a good to be imitated, +let it come from whom it will. If a sceptic is tolerant, it only shows +that he is not foolish in practice as well as erroneous in theory. If a +religious man is tolerant, it evinces that he is religious from thought +and inquiry, because he exhibits in his conduct one of the most beautiful +and important consequences of a religious mind—an inviolable charity to +all the honest varieties of human opinion. + +Lord Sidmouth, and all the anti-Catholic people, little foresee that they +will hereafter be the sport of the antiquary; that their prophecies of +ruin and destruction from Catholic emancipation will be clapped into the +notes of some quaint history, and be matter of pleasantry even to the +sedulous housewife and the rural dean. There is always a copious supply +of Lord Sidmouths in the world; nor is there one single source of human +happiness against which they have not uttered the most lugubrious +predictions. Turnpike roads, navigable canals, inoculation, hops, +tobacco, the Reformation, the Revolution—there are always a set of worthy +and moderately-gifted men, who bawl out death and ruin upon every +valuable change which the varying aspect of human affairs absolutely and +imperiously requires. I have often thought that it would be extremely +useful to make a collection of the hatred and abuse that all those +changes have experienced, which are now admitted to be marked +improvements in our condition. Such a history might make folly a little +more modest, and suspicious of its own decisions. + +Ireland, you say, since the Union is to be considered as a part of the +whole kingdom; and therefore, however Catholics may predominate in that +particular spot, yet, taking the whole empire together, they are to be +considered as a much more insignificant quota of the population. +Consider them in what light you please, as part of the whole, or by +themselves, or in what manner may be most consentaneous to the devices of +your holy mind—I say in a very few words, if you do not relieve these +people from the civil incapacities to which they are exposed, you will +lose them; or you must employ great strength and much treasure in +watching over them. In the present state of the world you can afford to +do neither the one nor the other. Having stated this, I shall leave you +to be ruined, Puffendorf in hand (as Mr. Secretary Canning says), and to +lose Ireland, just as you have found out what proportion the aggrieved +people should bear to the whole population before their calamities meet +with redress. As for your parallel cases, I am no more afraid of +deciding upon them than I am upon their prototype. If ever any one +heresy should so far spread itself over the principality of Wales that +the Established Church were left in a minority of one to four; if you had +subjected these heretics to very severe civil privations; if the +consequence of such privations were a universal state of disaffection +among that caseous and wrathful people; and if at the same time you were +at war with all the world, how can you doubt for a moment that I would +instantly restore them to a state of the most complete civil liberty? +What matters it under what name you put the same case? Common sense is +not changed by appellations. I have said how I would act to Ireland, and +I would act so to all the world. + +I admit that, to a certain degree, the Government will lose the +affections of the Orangemen by emancipating the Catholics; much less, +however, at present, than three years past. The few men, who have +ill-treated the whole crew, live in constant terror that the oppressed +people will rise upon them and carry the ship into Brest:—they begin to +find that it is a very tiresome thing to sleep every night with cocked +pistols under their pillows, and to breakfast, dine, and sup with drawn +hangers. They suspect that the privilege of beating and kicking the rest +of the sailors is hardly worth all this anxiety, and that if the ship +does ever fall into the hands of the disaffected, all the cruelties which +they have experienced will be thoroughly remembered and amply repaid. To +a short period of disaffection among the Orangemen I confess I should not +much object: my love of poetical justice does carry me as far as that; +one summer’s whipping, only one: the thumb-screw for a short season; a +little light easy torturing between Ladyday and Michaelmas; a short +specimen of Mr. Perceval’s rigour. I have malice enough to ask this +slight atonement for the groans and shrieks of the poor Catholics, +unheard by any human tribunal, but registered by the Angel of God against +their Protestant and enlightened oppressors. + +Besides, if you who count ten so often can count five, you must perceive +that it is better to have four friends and one enemy than four enemies +and one friend; and the more violent the hatred of the Orangemen, the +more certain the reconciliation of the Catholics. The disaffection of +the Orangemen will be the Irish rainbow: when I see it I shall be sure +that the storm is over. + +If these incapacities, from which the Catholics ask to be relieved, were +to the mass of them only a mere feeling of pride, and if the question +were respecting the attainment of privileges which could be of importance +only to the highest of the sect, I should still say that the pride of the +mass was very naturally wounded by the degradation of their superiors. +Indignity to George Rose would be felt by the smallest nummary gentleman +in the king’s employ; and Mr. John Bannister could not be indifferent to +anything which happened to Mr. Canning. But the truth is, it is a most +egregious mistake to suppose that the Catholics are contending merely for +the fringes and feathers of their chiefs. I will give you a list in my +next Letter of those privations which are represented to be of no +consequence to anybody but Lord Fingal, and some twenty or thirty of the +principal persons of their sect. In the meantime, adieu, and be wise. + + + +LETTER IX. + + +DEAR ABRAHAM,—No Catholic can be chief Governor or Governor of this +kingdom, Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord High Treasurer, +Chief of any of the Courts of Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, +Puisne Judge, Judge in the Admiralty, Master of the Rolls, Secretary of +State, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Vice-Treasurer or his Deputy, Teller or +Cashier of Exchequer, Auditor or General, Governor or Custos Rotulorum of +Counties, Chief Governor’s Secretary, Privy Councillor, King’s Counsel, +Serjeant, Attorney, Solicitor-General, Master in Chancery, Provost or +Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Postmaster-General, Master and +Lieutenant-General of Ordnance, Commander-in-Chief, General on the Staff, +Sheriff, Sub-Sheriff, Mayor, Bailiff, Recorder, Burgess, or any other +officer in a City, or a Corporation. No Catholic can be guardian to a +Protestant, and no priest guardian at all; no Catholic can be a +gamekeeper, or have for sale, or otherwise, any arms or warlike stores; +no Catholic can present to a living, unless he choose to turn Jew in +order to obtain that privilege; the pecuniary qualification of Catholic +jurors is made higher than that of Protestants, and no relaxation of the +ancient rigorous code is permitted, unless to those who shall take an +oath prescribed by 13 and 14 George III. Now if this is not picking the +plums out of the pudding and leaving the mere batter to the Catholics, I +know not what is. If it were merely the Privy Council, it would be (I +allow) nothing but a point of honour for which the mass of Catholics were +contending, the honour of being chief-mourners or pall-bearers to the +country; but surely no man will contend that every barrister may not +speculate upon the possibility of being a Puisne Judge; and that every +shopkeeper must not feel himself injured by his exclusion from borough +offices. + +One of the greatest practical evils which the Catholics suffer in Ireland +is their exclusion from the offices of Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff. +Nobody who is unacquainted with Ireland can conceive the obstacles which +this opposes to the fair administration of justice. The formation of +juries is now entirely in the hands of the Protestants; the lives, +liberties, and properties of the Catholics in the hands of the juries; +and this is the arrangement for the administration of justice in a +country where religious prejudices are inflamed to the greatest degree of +animosity! In this country, if a man be a foreigner, if he sell +slippers, and sealing wax, and artificial flowers, we are so tender of +human life that we take care half the number of persons who are to decide +upon his fate should be men of similar prejudices and feelings with +himself: but a poor Catholic in Ireland may be tried by twelve Percevals, +and destroyed according to the manner of that gentleman in the name of +the Lord, and with all the insulting forms of justice. I do not go the +length of saying that deliberate and wilful injustice is done. I have no +doubt that the Orange Deputy Sheriff thinks it would be a most +unpardonable breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. +I can easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves +very conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the crucifix; but I +blame the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable +tenor of those feelings which must unconsciously influence the judgments +of mankind. I detest that state of society which extends unequal degrees +of protection to different creeds and persuasions; and I cannot describe +to you the contempt I feel for a man who, calling himself a statesman, +defends a system which fills the heart of every Irishman with treason, +and makes his allegiance prudence, not choice. + +I request to know if the vestry taxes in Ireland are a mere matter of +romantic feeling which can affect only the Earl of Fingal? In a parish +where there are four thousand Catholics and fifty Protestants, the +Protestants may meet together in a vestry meeting at which no Catholic +has the right to vote, and tax all the lands in the parish 1s. 6d. per +acre, or in the pound, I forget which, for the repairs of the church—and +how has the necessity of these repairs been ascertained? A Protestant +plumber has discovered that it wants new leading; a Protestant carpenter +is convinced the timbers are not sound; and the glazier who hates holy +water (as an accoucheur hates celibacy, because he gets nothing by it) is +employed to put in new sashes. + +The grand juries in Ireland are the great scene of jobbing. They have a +power of making a county rate to a considerable extent for roads, +bridges, and other objects of general accommodation. “You suffer the +road to be brought through my park, and I will have the bridge +constructed in a situation where it will make a beautiful object to your +house. You do my job, and I will do yours.” These are the sweet and +interesting subjects which occasionally occupy Milesian gentlemen while +they are attendant upon this grand inquest of justice. But there is a +religion, it seems, even in jobs; and it will be highly gratifying to Mr. +Perceval to learn that no man in Ireland who believes in seven sacraments +can carry a public road, or bridge, one yard out of the direction most +beneficial to the public, and that nobody can cheat the public who does +not expound the Scriptures in the purest and most orthodox manner. This +will give pleasure to Mr. Perceval: but, from his unfairness upon these +topics I appeal to the justice and the proper feelings of Mr. Huskisson. +I ask him if the human mind can experience a more dreadful sensation than +to see its own jobs refused, and the jobs of another religion perpetually +succeeding? I ask him his opinion of a jobless faith, of a creed which +dooms a man through life to a lean and plunderless integrity. He knows +that human nature cannot and will not bear it; and if we were to paint a +political Tartarus, it would be an endless series of snug expectations +and cruel disappointments. These are a few of many dreadful +inconveniences which the Catholics of all ranks suffer from the laws by +which they are at present oppressed. Besides, look at human nature: what +is the history of all professions? Joel is to be brought up to the bar: +has Mrs. Plymley the slightest doubt of his being Chancellor? Do not his +two shrivelled aunts live in the certainty of seeing him in that +situation, and of cutting out with their own hands his equity +habiliments? And I could name a certain minister of the Gospel who does +not, in the bottom of his heart, much differ from these opinions. Do you +think that the fathers and mothers of the holy Catholic Church are not as +absurd as Protestant papas and mammas? The probability I admit to be, in +each particular case, that the sweet little blockhead will in fact never +get a brief;—but I will venture to say, there is not a parent from the +Giant’s Causeway to Bantry Bay who does not conceive that his child is +the unfortunate victim of the exclusion, and that nothing short of +positive law could prevent his own dear, pre-eminent Paddy from rising to +the highest honours of the State. So with the army and parliament; in +fact, few are excluded; but, in imagination, all: you keep twenty or +thirty Catholics out, and you lose the affections of four millions; and, +let me tell you, that recent circumstances have by no means tended to +diminish in the minds of men that hope of elevation beyond their own rank +which is so congenial to our nature: from pleading for John Roe to taxing +John Bull, from jesting for Mr. Pitt and writing in the _Anti-Jacobin_, +to managing the affairs of Europe—these are leaps which seem to justify +the fondest dreams of mothers and of aunts. + +I do not say that the disabilities to which the Catholics are exposed +amount to such intolerable grievances, that the strength and industry of +a nation are overwhelmed by them: the increasing prosperity of Ireland +fully demonstrates to the contrary. But I repeat again, what I have +often stated in the course of our correspondence, that your laws against +the Catholics are exactly in that state in which you have neither the +benefits of rigour nor of liberality: every law which prevented the +Catholic from gaining strength and wealth is repealed; every law which +can irritate remains; if you were determined to insult the Catholics, you +should have kept them weak; if you resolved to give them strength, you +should have ceased to insult them—at present your conduct is pure, +unadulterated folly. + +Lord Hawkesbury says, “We heard nothing about the Catholics till we began +to mitigate the laws against them; when we relieved them in part from +this oppression they began to be disaffected.” This is very true; but it +proves just what I have said, that you have either done too much or too +little; and as there lives not, I hope, upon earth, so depraved a +courtier that he would load the Catholics with their ancient chains, what +absurdity it is, then, not to render their dispositions friendly, when +you leave their arms and legs free! + +You know, and many Englishmen know, what passes in China; but nobody +knows or cares what passes in Ireland. At the beginning of the present +reign no Catholic could realise property, or carry on any business; they +were absolutely annihilated, had had no more agency in the country than +so many trees. They were like Lord Mulgrave’s eloquence and Lord +Camden’s wit; the legislative bodies did not know of their existence. +For these twenty-five years last past the Catholics have been engaged in +commerce; within that period the commerce of Ireland has doubled—there +are four Catholics at work for one Protestant, and eight Catholics at +work for one Episcopalian. Of course, the proportion which Catholic +wealth bears to Protestant wealth is every year altering rapidly in +favour of the Catholics. I have already told you what their purchases of +land were the last year: since that period I have been at some pains to +find out the actual state of the Catholic wealth: it is impossible upon +such a subject to arrive at complete accuracy; but I have good reason to +believe that there are at present 2,000 Catholics in Ireland, possessing +an income of £500 and upwards, many of these with incomes of one, two, +three, and four thousand, and some amounting to fifteen and twenty +thousand per annum:—and this is the kingdom, and these the people, for +whose conciliation we are to wait Heaven knows when, and Lord Hawkesbury +why! As for me, I never think of the situation of Ireland without +feeling the same necessity for immediate interference as I should do if I +saw blood flowing from a great artery. I rush towards it with the +instinctive rapidity of a man desirous of preventing death, and have no +other feeling but that in a few seconds the patient may be no more. + +I could not help smiling, in the times of No Popery, to witness the loyal +indignation of many persons at the attempt made by the last ministry to +do something for the relief of Ireland. The general cry in the country +was, that they would not see their beloved Monarch used ill in his old +age, and that they would stand by him to the last drop of their blood. I +respect good feelings, however erroneous be the occasions on which they +display themselves; and therefore I saw in all this as much to admire as +to blame. It was a species of affection, however, which reminded me very +forcibly of the attachment displayed by the servants of the Russian +ambassador at the beginning of the last century. His Excellency happened +to fall down in a kind of apoplectic fit, when he was paying a morning +visit in the house of an acquaintance. The confusion was of course very +great, and messengers were despatched in every direction to find a +surgeon: who, upon his arrival, declared that his Excellency must be +immediately blooded, and prepared himself forthwith to perform the +operation: the barbarous servants of the embassy, who were there in great +numbers, no sooner saw the surgeon prepared to wound the arm of their +master with a sharp, shining instrument, than they drew their swords, put +themselves in an attitude of defence, and swore in pure Sclavonic, “that +they would murder any man who attempted to do him the slightest injury: +he had been a very good master to them, and they would not desert him in +his misfortunes, or suffer his blood to be shed while he was off his +guard, and incapable of defending himself.” By good fortune, the +secretary arrived about this period of the dispute, and his Excellency, +relieved from superfluous blood and perilous affection, was, after much +difficulty, restored to life. + +There is an argument brought forward with some appearance of plausibility +in the House of Commons, which certainly merits an answer: You know that +the Catholics now vote for members of parliament in Ireland, and that +they outnumber the Protestants in a very great proportion; if you allow +Catholics to sit in parliament, religion will be found to influence votes +more than property, and the greater part of the 100 Irish members who are +returned to parliament will be Catholics. Add to these the Catholic +members who are returned in England, and you will have a phalanx of +heretical strength which every minister will be compelled to respect, and +occasionally to conciliate by concessions incompatible with the interests +of the Protestant Church. The fact is, however, that you are at this +moment subjected to every danger of this kind which you can possibly +apprehend hereafter. If the spiritual interests of the voters are more +powerful than their temporal interests, they can bind down their +representatives to support any measures favourable to the Catholic +religion, and they can change the objects of their choice till they have +found Protestant members (as they easily may do) perfectly obedient to +their wishes. If the superior possessions of the Protestants prevent the +Catholics from uniting for a common political object, then the danger you +fear cannot exist: if zeal, on the contrary, gets the better of acres, +then the danger at present exists, from the right of voting already given +to the Catholics, and it will not be increased by allowing them to sit in +parliament. There are, as nearly as I can recollect, thirty seats in +Ireland for cities and counties, where the Protestants are the most +numerous, and where the members returned must of course be Protestants. +In the other seventy representations the wealth of the Protestants is +opposed to the number of the Catholics; and if all the seventy members +returned were of the Catholic persuasion, they must still plot the +destruction of our religion in the midst of 588 Protestants. Such +terrors would disgrace a cook-maid, or a toothless aunt—when they fall +from the lips of bearded and senatorial men, they are nauseous, +antiperistaltic, and emetical. + +How can you for a moment doubt of the rapid effects which would be +produced by the emancipation? In the first place, to my certain +knowledge the Catholics have long since expressed to his Majesty’s +Ministers their perfect readiness _to vest in his Majesty_, _either with +the consent of the Pope_, _or without it if it cannot be obtained_, _the +nomination of the Catholic prelacy_. The Catholic prelacy in Ireland +consists of twenty-six bishops and the warden of Galway, a dignitary +enjoying Catholic jurisdiction. The number of Roman Catholic priests in +Ireland exceeds one thousand. The expenses of his peculiar worship are, +to a substantial farmer or mechanic, five shillings per annum; to a +labourer (where he is not entirely excused) one shilling per annum; this +includes the contribution of the whole family, and for this the priest is +bound to attend them when sick, and to confess them when they apply to +him; he is also to keep his chapel in order, to celebrate divine service, +and to preach on Sundays and holydays. + +In the northern district a priest gains from £30 to £50; in the other +parts of Ireland from £60 to £90 per annum. The best paid Catholic +bishops receive about £400 per annum; the others from £300 to £350. My +plan is very simple: I would have 300 Catholic parishes at £100 per +annum, 300 at £200 per annum, and 400 at £300 per annum; this, for the +whole thousand parishes, would amount to £190,000. To the prelacy I +would allot £20,000 in unequal proportions, from £1,000 to £500; and I +would appropriate £40,000 more for the support of Catholic schools, and +the repairs of Catholic churches; the whole amount of which sum is +£250,000, about the expense of three days of one of our genuine, good +English _just and necessary wars_. The clergy should all receive their +salaries at the Bank of Ireland, and I would place the whole patronage in +the hands of the Crown. Now, I appeal to any human being, except Spencer +Perceval, Esq., of the parish of Hampstead, what the disaffection of a +clergy would amount to, gaping after this graduated bounty of the Crown, +and whether Ignatius Loyala himself, if he were a living blockhead +instead of a dead saint, could withstand the temptation of bouncing from +£100 a year at Sligo, to £300 in Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of +money for which the merchants and landowners and nobility of England are +exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The +sinecure places of the Roses and the Percevals, and the “dear and near +relations,” put up to auction at thirty years’ purchase, would almost +amount to the money. + +I admit that nothing can be more reasonable than to expect that a +Catholic priest should starve to death, genteelly and pleasantly, for the +good of the Protestant religion; but is it equally reasonable to expect +that he should do so for the Protestant pews, and Protestant brick and +mortar? On an Irish Sabbath, the bell of a neat parish church often +summons to church only the parson and an occasionally conforming clerk; +while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics are huddled together +in a miserable hovel, and pelted by all the storms of heaven. Can +anything be more distressing than to see a venerable man pouring forth +sublime truths in tattered breeches, and depending for his food upon the +little offal he gets from his parishioners? I venerate a human being who +starves for his principles, let them be what they may; but starving for +anything is not at all to the taste of the honourable flagellants: strict +principles, and good pay, is the motto of Mr. Perceval: the one he keeps +in great measure for the faults of his enemies, the other for himself. + +There are parishes in Connaught in which a Protestant was never settled +nor even seen. In that province in Munster, and in parts of Leinster, +the entire peasantry for sixty miles are Catholics; in these tracts the +churches are frequently shut for want of a congregation, or opened to an +assemblage of from six to twenty persons. Of what Protestants there are +in Ireland, the greatest part are gathered together in Ulster, or they +live in towns. In the country of the other three provinces the Catholics +see no other religion but their own, and are at the least as fifteen to +one Protestant. In the diocese of Tuam they are sixty to one; in the +parish of St. Mulins, diocese of Leghlin, there are four thousand +Catholics and one Protestant; in the town of Grasgenamana, in the county +of Kilkenny, there are between four and five hundred Catholic houses, and +three Protestant houses. In the parish of Allen, county Kildare, there +is no Protestant, though it is very populous. In the parish of Arlesin, +Queen’s County, the proportion is one hundred to one. In the whole +county of Kilkenny, by actual enumeration, it is seventeen to one; in the +diocese of Kilmacduagh, province of Connaught, fifty-two to one, by +ditto. These I give you as a few specimens of the present state of +Ireland; and yet there are men impudent and ignorant enough to contend +that such evils require no remedy, and that mild family man who dwelleth +in Hampstead can find none but the cautery and the knife. + + —“Omne per ignem + Excoquitur vitium.” + +I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr. +Perceval call upon the then Ministry for measures of vigour in Ireland. +If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats and claret; if I walked to +church every Sunday before eleven young gentlemen of my own begetting, +with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed; if the +Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort—how awfully would I +pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins of the +poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland! How easy it is +to shed human blood; how easy it is to persuade ourselves that it is our +duty to do so, and that the decision has cost us a severe struggle; how +much in all ages have wounds and shrieks and tears been the cheap and +vulgar resources of the rulers of mankind; how difficult and how noble it +is to govern in kindness and to found an empire upon the everlasting +basis of justice and affection! But what do men call vigour? To let +loose hussars and to bring up artillery, to govern with lighted matches, +and to cut, and push, and prime; I call this not vigour, but the _sloth +of cruelty and ignorance_. The vigour I love consists in finding out +wherein subjects are aggrieved, in relieving them, in studying the temper +and genius of a people, in consulting their prejudices, in selecting +proper persons to lead and manage them, in the laborious, watchful, and +difficult task of increasing public happiness by allaying each particular +discontent. In this way Hoche pacified La Vendée—and in this way only +will Ireland ever be subdued. But this, in the eyes of Mr. Perceval, is +imbecility and meanness. Houses are not broken open, women are not +insulted, the people seem all to be happy; they are not rode over by +horses, and cut by whips. Do you call this vigour? Is this government? + + + +LETTER X. AND LAST. + + +YOU must observe that all I have said of the effects which will be +produced by giving salaries to the Catholic clergy, only proceeds upon +the supposition that the emanciptaion of the laity is effected:—without +that, I am sure there is not a clergyman in Ireland who would receive a +shilling from government; he could not do so, without an entire loss of +credit among the members of his own persuasion. + +What you say of the moderation of the Irish Protestant clergy in +collecting tithes, is, I believe, strictly true. Instead of collecting +what the law enables them to collect, I believe they seldom or ever +collect more than two-thirds; and I entirely agree with you, that the +abolition of agistment tithe in Ireland by a vote of the Irish House of +Commons, and without any remuneration to the Church, was a most +scandalous and Jacobinical measure. I do not blame the Irish clergy; but +I submit to your common sense, if it be possible to explain to an Irish +peasant upon what principle of justice, or common sense, he is to pay +every tenth potato in his little garden to a clergyman in whose religion +nobody believes for twenty miles around him, and who has nothing to +preach to but bare walls? It is true, if the tithes are bought up, the +cottager must pay more rent to his landlord; but the same thing done in +the shape of rent is less odious than when it is done in the shape of +tithe. I do not want to take a shilling out of the pockets of the +clergy, but to leave the substance of things, and to change their names. +I cannot see the slightest reason why the Irish labourer is to be +relieved from the real onus, or from anything else but the name of tithe. +At present he rents only nine-tenths of the produce of the land, which is +all that belongs to the owner; this he has at the market price; if the +landowner purchase the other tenth of the Church, of course he has a +right to make a correspondent advance upon his tenant. + +I very much doubt, if you were to lay open all civil offices to the +Catholics, and to grant salaries to their clergy, in the manner I have +stated, if the Catholic laity would give themselves much trouble about +the advance of their Church; for they would pay the same tithes under one +system that they do under another. If you were to bring the Catholics +into the daylight of the world, to the high situations of the army, the +navy, and the bar, numbers of them would come over to the Established +Church, and do as other people do; instead of that, you set a mark of +infamy upon them, rouse every passion of our nature in favour of their +creed, and then wonder that men are blind to the follies of the Catholic +religion. There are hardly any instances of old and rich families among +the Protestant Dissenters: when a man keeps a coach, and lives in good +company, he comes to church, and gets ashamed of the meeting-house; if +this is not the case with the father, it is almost always the case with +the son. These things would never be so if the Dissenters were in +_practice_ as much excluded from all the concerns of civil life as the +Catholics are. If a rich young Catholic were in Parliament, he would +belong to White’s and to Brookes’s, would keep race-horses, would walk up +and down Pall Mall, be exonerated of his ready money and his +constitution, become as totally devoid of morality, honesty, knowledge, +and civility as Protestant loungers in Pall Mall, and return home with a +supreme contempt for Father O’Leary and Father O’Callaghan. I am +astonished at the madness of the Catholic clergy in not perceiving that +Catholic emancipation is Catholic infidelity; that to entangle their +people in the intrigues of a Protestant parliament, and a Protestant +court, is to ensure the loss of every man of fashion and consequence in +their community. The true receipt for preserving their religion, is Mr. +Perceval’s receipt for destroying it: it is to deprive every rich +Catholic of all the objects of secular ambition, to separate him from the +Protestant, and to shut him up in his castle with priests and relics. + +We are told, in answer to all our arguments, that this is not a fit +period—that a period of universal war is not the proper time for +dangerous innovations in the constitution: this is as much as to say, +that the worst time for making friends is the period when you have made +many enemies; that it is the greatest of all errors to stop when you are +breathless, and to lie down when you are fatigued. Of one thing I am +quite certain: if the safety of Europe is once completely restored, the +Catholics may for ever bid adieu to the slightest probability of +effecting their object. Such men as hang about a court not only are deaf +to the suggestions of mere justice, but they despise justice; they detest +the word _right_; the only word which rouses them is _peril_; where they +can oppress with impunity, they oppress for ever, and call it loyalty and +wisdom. + +I am so far from conceiving the legitimate strength of the Crown would be +diminished by these abolitions of civil incapacities in consequence of +religious opinions, that my only objection to the increase of religious +freedom is, that it would operate as a diminution of political freedom; +the power of the Crown is so overbearing at this period, that almost the +only steady opposers of its fatal influence are men disgusted by +religious intolerance. Our establishments are so enormous, and so +utterly disproportioned to our population, that every second or third man +you meet in society gains something from the public; my brother the +commissioner,—my nephew the police justice,—purveyor of small beer to the +army in Ireland,—clerk of the mouth,—yeoman to the left hand,—these are +the obstacles which common sense and justice have now to overcome. Add +to this that the King, old and infirm, excites a principle of very +amiable generosity in his favour; that he has led a good, moral, and +religious life, equally removed from profligacy and methodistical +hypocrisy; that he has been a good husband, a good father, and a good +master; that he dresses plain, loves hunting and farming, fates the +French, and is in all his opinions and habits, quite English:—these +feelings are heightened by the present situation of the world, and the +yet unexploded clamour of Jacobinism. In short, from the various sources +of interest, personal regard, and national taste, such a tempest of +loyalty has set in upon the people that the 47th proposition in Euclid +might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; +and therefore if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as +much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for +getting rid of the multiplication table, and passing a vote of censure +upon the pretensions of the _hypotenuse_. Such is the history of English +parties at this moment: you cannot seriously suppose that the people care +for such men as Lord Hawkesbury, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Perceval on their +own account; you cannot really believe them to be so degraded as to look +to their safety from a man who proposes to subdue Europe by keeping it +without Jesuit’s Bark. The people at present have one passion, and but +one— + + “A Jove principium, Jovis omnia plena.” + +They care no more for the ministers I have mentioned, than they do for +those sturdy royalists who for £60 per annum stand behind his Majesty’s +carriage, arrayed in scarlet and in gold. If the present ministers +opposed the Court instead of flattering it, they would not command twenty +votes. + +Do not imagine by these observations that I am not loyal; without joining +in the common cant of the best of kings, I respect the King most +sincerely as a good man. His religion is better than the religion of Mr. +Perceval, his old morality very superior to the old morality of Mr. +Canning, and I am quite certain he has a safer understanding than both of +them put together. Loyalty within the bounds of reason and moderation is +one of the great instruments of human happiness; but the love of the king +may easily become more strong than the love of the kingdom, and we may +lose sight of the public welfare in our exaggerated admiration of him who +is appointed to reign only for its promotion and support. I detest +Jacobinism; and if I am doomed to be a slave at all, I would rather be +the slave of a king than a cobbler. God save the King, you say, warms +your heart like the sound of a trumpet. I cannot make use of so violent +a metaphor; but I am delighted to hear it, when it is the cry of genuine +affection; I am delighted to hear it when they hail not only the +individual man, but the outward and living sign of all English blessings. +These are noble feelings, and the heart of every good man must go with +them; but God save the King, in these times, too often means God save my +pension and my place, God give my sisters an allowance out of the privy +purse—make me clerk of the irons, let me survey the meltings, let me live +upon the fruits of other men’s industry, and fatten upon the plunder of +the public. + +What is it possible to say to such a man as the Gentleman of Hampstead, +who really believes it feasible to convert the four million Irish +Catholics to the Protestant religion, and considers this as the best +remedy for the disturbed state of Ireland? It is not possible to answer +such a man with arguments; we must come out against him with beads and a +cowl, and push him into an hermitage. It is really such trash, that it +is an abuse of the privilege of reasoning to reply to it. Such a project +is well worthy the statesman who would bring the French to reason by +keeping them without rhubarb, and exhibit to mankind the awful spectacle +of a nation deprived of neutral salts. This is not the dream of a wild +apothecary indulging in his own opium; this is not the distempered fancy +of a pounder of drugs, delirious from smallness of profits; but it is the +sober, deliberate, and systematic scheme of a man to whom the public +safety is intrusted, and whose appointment is considered by many as a +masterpiece of political sagacity. What a sublime thought, that no purge +can now be taken between the Weser and the Garonne; that the bustling +pestle is still, the canorous mortar mute, and the bowels of mankind +locked up for fourteen degrees of latitude! When, I should be curious to +know, were all the powers of crudity and flatulence fully explained to +his Majesty’s ministers? At what period was this great plan of conquest +and constipation fully developed? In whose mind was the idea of +destroying the pride and the plasters of France first engendered? +Without castor oil they might for some months, to be sure, have carried +on a lingering war! but can they do without bark? Will the people live +under a government where antimonial powders cannot be procured? Will +they bear the loss of mercury? “There’s the rub.” Depend upon it, the +absence of the materia medica will soon bring them to their senses, and +the cry of _Bourbon and bolus_ burst forth from the Baltic to the +Mediterranean. + +You ask me for any precedent in our history where the oath of supremacy +has been dispensed with. It was dispensed with to the Catholics of +Canada in 1774. They are only required to take a simple oath of +allegiance. The same, I believe, was the case in Corsica. The reason of +such exemption was obvious; you could not possibly have retained either +of these countries without it. And what did it signify, whether you +retained them or not? In cases where you might have been foolish without +peril you were wise; when nonsense and bigotry threaten you with +destruction, it is impossible to bring you back to the alphabet of +justice and common sense. If men are to be fools, I would rather they +were fools in little matters than in great; dulness turned up with +temerity is a livery all the worse for the facings; and the most +tremendous of all things is the magnanimity of the dunce. + +It is not by any means necessary, as you contend, to repeal the Test Act +if you give relief to the Catholic: what the Catholics ask for is to be +put on a footing with the Protestant Dissenters, which would be done by +repealing that part of the law which compels them to take the oath of +supremacy and to make the declaration against transubstantiation: they +would then come into Parliament as all other Dissenters are allowed to +do, and the penal laws to which they were exposed for taking office would +be suspended every year, as they have been for this half century past +towards Protestant Dissenters. Perhaps, after all, this is the best +method—to continue the persecuting law, and to suspend it every year—a +method which, while it effectually destroys the persecution itself, +leaves to the great mass of mankind the exquisite gratification of +supposing that they are enjoying some advantage from which a particular +class of their fellow creatures are excluded. We manage the Corporation +and Test Acts at present much in the same manner as if we were to +persuade parish boys who had been in the habit of beating an ass to spare +the animal, and beat the skin of an ass stuffed with straw; this would +preserve the semblance of tormenting without the reality, and keep boy +and beast in good humour. + +How can you imagine that a provision for the Catholic clergy affects the +5th article of the Union? Surely I am preserving the Protestant Church +in Ireland if I put it in a better condition than that in which it now +is. A tithe proctor in Ireland collects his tithes with a blunderbuss, +and carries his tenth hay-cock by storm, sword in hand: to give him equal +value in a more pacific shape cannot, I should imagine, be considered as +injurious to the Church of Ireland; and what right has that Church to +complain if Parliament chooses to fix upon the empire the burden of +supporting a double ecclesiastical establishment? Are the revenues of +the Irish Protestant clergy in the slightest degree injured by such +provision? On the contrary, is it possible to confer a more serious +benefit upon that Church than by quieting and contenting those who are at +work for its destruction? + +It is impossible to think of the affairs of Ireland without being +forcibly struck with the parallel of Hungary. Of her seven millions of +inhabitants, one half were Protestants, Calvinists, and Lutherans, many +of the Greek Church, and many Jews: such was the state of their religious +dissensions that Mahomet had often been called in to the aid of Calvin, +and the crescent often glittered on the walls of Buda and Presburg. At +last, in 1791, during the most violent crisis of disturbance, a Diet was +called, and by a great majority of voices a decree was passed, which +secured to all the contending sects the fullest and freest exercise of +religious worship and education; ordained—let it be heard in +Hampstead—that churches and chapels should be erected for all on the most +perfectly equal terms; that the Protestants of both confessions should +depend upon their spiritual superiors alone; liberated them from swearing +by the usual oath, “the Holy Virgin Mary, the saints, and chosen of God;” +and then the decree adds, “that _public offices and honours_, _high or +low_, _great or small_, _shall be given to natural-born Hungarians who +deserve well of their country_, _and possess the other qualifications_, +_let their religion be what it may_.” Such was the line of policy +pursued in a Diet consisting of four hundred members, in a state whose +form of government approaches nearer to our own than any other, having a +Roman Catholic establishment of great wealth and power, and under the +influence of one of the most bigoted Catholic Courts in Europe. This +measure has now the experience of eighteen years in its favour; it has +undergone a trial of fourteen years of revolution such as the world never +witnessed, and more than equal to a century less convulsed: What have +been its effects? When the French advanced like a torrent within a few +days’ march of Vienna, the Hungarians rose in a mass; they formed what +they called the sacred insurrection, to defend their sovereign, their +rights and liberties, now common to all; and the apprehension of their +approach dictated to the reluctant Bonaparte the immediate signature of +the treaty of _Leoben_. The Romish hierarchy of Hungary exists in all +its former splendour and opulence; never has the slightest attempt been +made to diminish it; and those revolutionary principles, to which so +large a portion of civilised Europe has been sacrificed, have here failed +in making the smallest successful inroad. + +The whole history of this proceeding of the Hungarian Diet is so +extraordinary, and such an admirable comment upon the Protestantism of +Mr. Spencer Perceval, that I must compel you to read a few short extracts +from the law itself:—“The Protestants of both confessions shall, in +religious matters, depend upon their own spiritual superiors alone. The +Protestants may likewise retain their trivial and grammar schools. The +Church dues which the Protestants have hitherto paid to the Catholic +parish priests, schoolmasters, or other such officers, either in money, +productions, or labour, shall in future entirely cease, and after three +months from the publishing of this law, be no more anywhere demanded. In +the building or repairing of churches, parsonage-houses, and schools, the +Protestants are not obliged to assist the Catholics with labour, nor the +Catholics the Protestants. The pious foundations and donations of the +Protestants which already exist, or which in future may be made for their +churches, ministers, schools and students, hospitals, orphan houses, and +poor, cannot be taken from them under any pretext, nor yet the care of +them; but rather the unimpeded administration shall be intrusted to those +from among them to whom it legally belongs, and those foundations which +may have been taken from them under the last government shall be returned +to them without delay. All affairs of marriage of the Protestants are +left to their own consistories; all landlords and masters of families, +under the penalty of public prosecution, are ordered not to prevent their +subjects and servants, whether they be Catholic or Protestant, from the +observance of the festivals and ceremonies of their religion,” etc. etc. +etc.—By what strange chances are mankind influenced! A little Catholic +barrister of Vienna might have raised the cry of _No Protestantism_, and +Hungary would have panted for the arrival of a French army as much as +Ireland does at this moment; arms would have been searched for; Lutheran +and Calvinist houses entered in the dead of the night; and the strength +of Austria exhausted in guarding a country from which, under the present +liberal system, she may expect in the moment of danger the most powerful +aid: and let it be remembered that this memorable example of political +wisdom took place at a period when many great monarchies were yet +unconquered in Europe; in a country where the two religious parties were +equal in number; and where it is impossible to suppose indifference in +the party which relinquished its exclusive privileges. Under all these +circumstances the measure was carried in the Hungarian Diet by a majority +of 280 to 120. In a few weeks we shall see every concession denied to +the Catholics by a much larger majority of Protestants, at a moment when +every other power is subjugated but ourselves, and in a country where the +oppressed are four times as numerous as their oppressors. So much for +the wisdom of our ancestors—so much for the nineteenth century—so much +for the superiority of the English over all the nations of the Continent. + +Are you not sensible, let me ask you, of the absurdity of trusting the +lowest Catholics with offices correspondent to their situation in life, +and of denying such privileges to the higher. A Catholic may serve in +the militia, but a Catholic cannot come into Parliament; in the latter +case you suspect combination, and in the former case you suspect no +combination; you deliberately arm ten or twenty thousand of the lowest of +the Catholic people; and the moment you come to a class of men whose +education, honour, and talents seem to render all mischief less probable, +then you see the danger of employing a Catholic, and cling to your +investigating tests and disabling laws. If you tell me you have enough +of members of Parliament and not enough of militia without the Catholics, +I beg leave to remind you that, by employing the physical force of any +sect at the same time when you leave them in a state of utter +disaffection, you are not adding strength to your armies, but weakness +and ruin. If you want the vigour of their common people, you must not +disgrace their nobility and insult their priesthood. + +I thought that the terror of the Pope had been confined to the limits of +the nursery, and merely employed as a means to induce young master to +enter into his small-clothes with greater speed and to eat his breakfast +with greater attention to decorum. For these purposes the name of the +Pope is admirable; but why push it beyond? Why not leave to Lord +Hawkesbury all further enumeration of the Pope’s powers? For a whole +century you have been exposed to the enmity of France, and your +succession was disputed in two rebellions: what could the Pope do at the +period when there was a serious struggle whether England should be +Protestant or Catholic, and when the issue was completely doubtful? +Could the Pope induce the Irish to rise in 1715? Could he induce them to +rise in 1745? You had no Catholic enemy when half this island was in +arms; and what did the Pope attempt in the last rebellion in Ireland? +But if he had as much power over the minds of the Irish as Mr. +Wilberforce has over the mind of a young Methodist converted the +preceding quarter, is this a reason why we are to disgust men who may be +acted upon in such a manner by a foreign power? or is it not an +additional reason why we should raise up every barrier of affection and +kindness against the mischief of foreign influence? But the true answer +is, the mischief does not exist. Gog and Magog have produced as much +influence upon human affairs as the Pope has done for this half century +past; and by spoiling him of his possessions, and degrading him in the +eyes of all Europe, Bonaparte has not taken quite the proper method of +increasing his influence. + +But why not a Catholic king as well as a Catholic member of Parliament, +or of the Cabinet?—Because it is probable that the one would be +mischievous and the other not. A Catholic king might struggle against +the Protestantism of the country, and if the struggle were not successful +it would at least be dangerous; but the efforts of any other Catholic +would be quite insignificant, and his hope of success so small, that it +is quite improbable the effort would ever be made: my argument is, that +in so Protestant a country as Great Britain, the character of her +parliaments and her cabinet could not be changed by the few Catholics who +would ever find their way to the one or the other. But the power of the +Crown is immeasurably greater than the power which the Catholics could +obtain from any other species of authority in the state; and it does not +follow because the lesser degree of power is innocent that the greater +should be so too. As for the stress you lay upon the danger of a +Catholic chancellor, I have not the least hesitation in saying that his +appointment would not do a ten thousandth part of the mischief to the +English Church that might be done by a Methodistical chancellor of the +true Clapham breed; and I request to know if it is really so very +necessary that a chancellor should be of the religion of the Church of +England, how many chancellors you have had within the last century who +have been bred up in the Presbyterian religion? And again, how many you +have had who notoriously have been without any religion at all? + +Why are you to suppose that eligibility and election are the same thing, +and that all the cabinet _will_ be Catholics whenever all the cabinet +_may_ be Catholics? You have a right, you say, to suppose an extreme +case, and to argue upon it—so have I: and I will suppose that the hundred +Irish members will one day come down in a body and pass a law compelling +the King to reside in Dublin. I will suppose that the Scotch members, by +a similar stratagem, will lay England under a large contribution of meal +and sulphur: no measure is without objection if you sweep the whole +horizon for danger; it is not sufficient to tell me of what may happen, +but you must show me a rational probability that it will happen: after +all, I might, contrary to my real opinion, admit all your dangers to +exist; it is enough for me to contend that all other dangers taken +together are not equal to the danger of losing Ireland from disaffection +and invasion. + +I am astonished to see you, and many good and well-meaning clergymen +beside you, painting the Catholics in such detestable colours; +two-thirds, at least, of Europe are Catholics—they are Christians, though +mistaken Christians; how can I possibly admit that any sect of +Christians, and, above all, that the oldest and the most numerous sect of +Christians are incapable of fulfilling the common duties and relations of +life: though I do differ from them in many particulars, God forbid I +should give such a handle to infidelity, and subscribe to such blasphemy +against our common religion? + +Do you think mankind never change their opinions without formally +expressing and confessing that change? When you quote the decisions of +ancient Catholic councils, are you prepared to defend all the decrees of +English convocations and universities since the reign of Queen Elizabeth? +I could soon make you sick of your uncandid industry against the +Catholics, and bring you to allow that it is better to forget times past, +and to judge and be judged by present opinions and present practice. + +I must beg to be excused from explaining and refuting all the mistakes +about the Catholics made by my Lord Redesdale; and I must do that +nobleman the justice to say, that he has been treated with great +disrespect. Could anything be more indecent than to make it a morning +lounge in Dublin to call upon his Lordship, and to cram him with +Arabian-night stories about the Catholics? Is this proper behaviour to +the representative of Majesty, the child of Themis, and the keeper of the +conscience in West Britain? Whoever reads the Letters of the Catholic +Bishops, in the appendix to Sir John Hippesly’s very sensible book, will +see to what an excess this practice must have been carried with the +pleasing and Protestant nobleman whose name I have mentioned, and from +thence I wish you to receive your answer about excommunication, and all +the trash which is talked against the Catholics. + +A sort of notion has, by some means or another, crept into the world that +difference of religion would render men unfit to perform together the +offices of common and civil life: that Brother Wood and Brother Grose +could not travel together the same circuit if they differed in creed, nor +Cockell and Mingay be engaged in the same cause, if Cockell was a +Catholic and Mingay a Muggletonian. It is supposed that Huskisson and +Sir Harry Englefield would squabble behind the Speaker’s chair about the +council of Lateran, and many a turnpike bill miscarry by the sarcastical +controversies of Mr. Hawkins Brown and Sir John Throckmorton upon the +real presence. I wish I could see some of these symptoms of earnestness +upon the subject of religion; but it really seems to me that, in the +present state of society, men no more think about inquiring concerning +each other’s faith than they do concerning the colour of each other’s +skins. There may have been times in England when the quarter sessions +would have been disturbed by theological polemics; but now, after a +Catholic justice had once been seen on the bench, and it had been clearly +ascertained that he spoke English, had no tail, only a single row of +teeth, and that he loved port wine—after all the scandalous and infamous +reports of his physical conformation had been clearly proved to be +false—he would be reckoned a jolly fellow, and very superior in flavour +to a sly Presbyterian. Nothing, in fact, can be more uncandid and +unphilosophical than to say that a man has a tail, because you cannot +agree within him upon religious subjects; it appears to be ludicrous: but +I am convinced it has done infinite mischief to the Catholics, and made a +very serious impression upon the minds of many gentlemen of large landed +property. + +In talking of the impossibility of Catholic and Protestant living +together with equal privilege under the same government, do you forget +the Cantons of Switzerland? You might have seen there a Protestant +congregation going into a church which had just been quitted by a +Catholic congregation; and I will venture to say that the Swiss Catholics +were more bigoted to their religion than any people in the whole world. +Did the kings of Prussia ever refuse to employ a Catholic? Would +Frederick the Great have rejected an able man on this account? We have +seen Prince Czartorinski, a Catholic Secretary of State in Russia; in +former times a Greek patriarch and an apostolic vicar acted together in +the most perfect harmony in Venice; and we have seen the Emperor of +Germany in modern times intrusting the care of his person and the command +of his guard to a Protestant Prince, Frederick of Wittenberg. But what +are all these things to Mr. Perceval? He has looked at human nature from +the top of Hampstead Hill, and has not a thought beyond the little sphere +of his own vision. “The snail,” say the Hindoos, “sees nothing but his +own shell, and thinks it the grandest palace in the universe.” + +I now take a final leave of this subject of Ireland; the only difficulty +in discussing it is a want of resistance, a want of something difficult +to unravel, and something dark to illumine. To agitate such a question +is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar; it is +a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man say, I +have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it, this mode of arguing +upon the Catholic question I can well understand; but that any human +being with an understanding two degrees elevated above that of an +Anabaptist preacher, should conscientiously contend for the expediency +and propriety of leaving the Irish Catholics in their present state, and +of subjecting us to such tremendous peril in the present condition of the +world, it is utterly out of my power to conceive. Such a measure as the +Catholic question is entirely beyond the common game of politics; it is a +measure in which all parties ought to acquiesce, in order to preserve the +place where and the stake for which they play. If Ireland is gone, where +are jobs? where are reversions? where is my brother Lord Arden? where are +my dear and near relations? The game is up, and the Speaker of the house +of Commons will be sent as a present to the menagerie at Paris. We talk +of waiting from particular considerations, as if centuries of joy and +prosperity were before us: in the next ten years our fate must be +decided; we shall know, long before that period, whether we can bear up +against the miseries by which we are threatened or not; and yet, in the +very midst of our crisis, we are enjoined to abstain from the most +certain means of increasing our strength, and advised to wait for the +remedy till the disease is removed by death or health. And now, instead +of the plain and manly policy of increasing unanimity at home, by +equalising rights and privileges, what is the ignorant, arrogant, and +wicked system which has been pursued? Such a career of madness and of +folly was, I believe, never run in so short a period. The vigour of the +ministry is like the vigour of a grave-digger—the tomb becomes more ready +and more wide for every effort which they make. There is nothing which +it is worth while either to take or to retain, and a constant train of +ruinous expeditions have been kept up. Every Englishman felt proud of +the integrity of his country; the character of the country is lost for +ever. It is of the utmost consequence to a commercial people at war with +the greatest part of Europe, that there should be a free entry of +neutrals into the enemy’s ports; the neutrals who earned our manufactures +we have not only excluded, but we have compelled them to declare war +against us. It was our interest to make a good peace, or convince our +own people that it could not be obtained; we have not made a peace, and +we have convinced the people of nothing but of the arrogance of the +Foreign Secretary: and all this has taken place in the short space of a +year, because a King’s Bench barrister and a writer of epigrams, turned +into Ministers of State, were determined to show country gentlemen that +the late administration had no vigour. In the meantime commerce stands +still, manufactures perish, Ireland is more and more irritated, India is +threatened, fresh taxes are accumulated upon the wretched people, the war +is carried on without it being possible to conceive any one single object +which a rational being can propose to himself by its continuation; and in +the midst of this unparalleled insanity we are told that the Continent is +to be reconquered by the want of rhubarb and plums. A better spirit than +exists in the English people never existed in any people in the world: it +has been misdirected, and squandered upon party purposes in the most +degrading and scandalous manner; they have been led to believe that they +were benefiting the commerce of England by destroying the commerce of +America, that they were defending their Sovereign by perpetuating the +bigoted oppression of their fellow-subjects; their rulers and their +guides have told them that they would equal the vigour of France by +equalling her atrocity; and they have gone on wasting that opulence, +patience, and courage, which, if husbanded by prudent and moderate +counsels, might have proved the salvation of mankind. The same policy of +turning the good qualities of Englishmen to their own destruction, which +made Mr. Pitt omnipotent, continues his power to those who resemble him +only in his vices; advantage is taken of the loyalty of Englishmen to +make them meanly submissive; their piety is turned into persecution, +their courage into useless and obstinate contention; they are plundered +because they are ready to pay, and soothed into asinine stupidity because +they are full of virtuous patience. If England must perish at last, so +let it be: that event is in the hands of God; we must dry up our tears +and submit. But that England should perish swindling and stealing; that +it should perish waging war against lazar houses and hospitals; that it +should perish persecuting with monastic bigotry; that it should calmly +give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arrogance of one man, and the +narrow fanaticism of another; these events are within the power of human +beings, and I did not think that the magnanimity of Englishmen would ever +stoop to such degradations. + + _Longum Vale!_ + + PETER PLYMLEY. + + + + +HISTORICAL APOLOGY FOR THE IRISH CATHOLICS. + + +_Historical Apology for The Irish Catholics_. By WILLIAM PARNELL, +Esquire. Fitzpatrick, Dublin. 1807. + + * * * * * + +IF ever a nation exhibited symptoms of downright madness, or utter +stupidity, we conceive these symptoms may be easily recognised in the +conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in +his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he +refuses to take the medicines for the fever because it will disconcert +the toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets that his toe +cannot survive him; that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart +from him: yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, +soothing it madly with little plasters, and anile fomentations, while the +neglected fever rages in his entrails, and burns away his whole life. If +the comparatively little questions of Establishment are all that this +country is capable of discussing or regarding, for God’s sake let us +remember that the foreign conquest, which destroys all, destroys this +beloved _toe_ also. Pass over freedom, industry, and science—and look +upon this great empire, by which we are about to be swallowed up, only as +it affects the manner of collecting tithes, and of reading the +liturgy—still, if all goes, these must go too; and even, for their +interests, it is worth while to conciliate Ireland, to avert the +hostility, and to employ the strength of the Catholic population. We +plead the question as the sincerest friends to the Establishment;—as +wishing to it all the prosperity and duration its warmest advocates can +desire,—but remembering always what these advocates seem to forget, that +the Establishment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as the +perdition of the kingdom in which it is established. + +We are truly glad to agree so entirely with Mr. Parnell upon this great +question; we admire his way of thinking, and most cordially recommend his +work to the attention of the public. The general conclusion which he +attempts to prove is this: that religious sentiment, however perverted by +bigotry or fanaticism, has always a _tendency_ to moderation; that it +seldom assumes any great portion of activity or enthusiasm, except from +novelty of opinion, or from opposition, contumely, and persecution, when +novelty ceases; that a Government has little to fear from any religious +sect, except while that sect is new. Give a Government only time, and, +provided it has the good sense to treat folly with forbearance, it must +ultimately prevail. When, therefore, a sect is found, after a lapse of +years, to be ill-disposed to the Government, we may be certain that +Government has widened its separation by marked distinctions, roused its +resentment by contumely, or supported its enthusiasm by persecution. + +The _particular_ conclusion Mr. Parnell attempts to prove is, that the +Catholic religion in Ireland had sunk into torpor and inactivity, till +Government roused it with the lash: that even then, from the respect and +attachment which men are always inclined to show towards government, +there still remained a large body of loyal Catholics; that these only +decreased in number from the rapid increase of persecution; and that, +after all, the effects which the resentment of the Roman Catholics had in +creating rebellions had been very much exaggerated. + +In support of these two conclusions, Mr. Parnell takes a survey of the +history of Ireland, from the conquest under Henry to the rebellion under +Charles I., passing very rapidly over the period which preceded the +Reformation, and dwelling principally upon the various rebellions which +broke out in Ireland between the Reformation and the grand rebellion in +the reign of Charles I. The celebrated conquest of Ireland by Henry II. +extended only to a very few counties in Leinster; nine-tenths of the +whole kingdom were left, as he found them, under the dominion of their +native princes. The influence of example was as strong in this as in +most other instances; and great numbers of the English settlers who came +over under various adventures resigned their pretensions to superior +civilisation, cast off their lower garments, and lapsed into the nudity +and barbarism of the Irish. The limit which divided the possessions of +the English settler from those of the native Irish was called _the pale_; +and the expressions of inhabitants _within the pale_, and _without the +pale_, were the terms by which the two nations were distinguished. It is +almost superfluous to state, that the most bloody and pernicious warfare +was carried on upon the borders—sometimes for something, sometimes for +nothing—most commonly for cows. The Irish, over whom the sovereigns of +England affected a sort of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by +their own laws, and so very little connection had they with the justice +of the invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman as it +was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the +defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and that +therefore defendant had a right to kill him—and upon the proof of +Hibernicism, acquittal followed of course. + +When the English army mustered in any great strength, the Irish +chieftains would do exterior homage to the English Crown; and they very +frequently, by this artifice, averted from their country the miseries of +invasion: but they remained completely unsubdued, till the rebellion +which took place in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of which that politic +woman availed herself to the complete subjugation of Ireland. In +speaking of the Irish about the reign of Elizabeth or James I., we must +not draw our comparisons from England, but from New Zealand; they were +not civilised men, but savages; and if we reason about their conduct, we +must reason of them as savages. + + “After reading every account of Irish history,” says Mr. Parnell, + “one great perplexity appears to remain: How does it happen, that, + from the first invasion of the English till the reign of James I., + Ireland seems not to have made the smallest progress in civilisation + or wealth? + + “That it was divided into a number of small principalities, which + waged constant war on each other—or that the appointment of the + chieftains was elective—do not appear sufficient reasons, although + these are the only ones assigned by those who have been at the + trouble of considering the subject: neither are the confiscations of + property quite sufficient to account for the effect. There have been + great confiscations in other countries, and still they have + flourished; the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to the + chiefries, as they were called, in Ireland; and yet they seemed to + flourish almost in proportion to their dissensions. Poland felt the + bad effects of an elective monarchy more than any other country; and + yet, in point of civilisation, it maintained a very respectable rank + among the nations of Europe; but Ireland never, for an instant, made + any progress in improvement, till the reign of James I. + + “It is scarcely credible, that in a climate like that of Ireland, and + at a period so far advanced in civilisation as the end of Elizabeth’s + reign, the greater part of the natives should go naked. Yet this is + rendered certain by the testimony of an eye-witness, Fynes Moryson. + ‘In the remote parts,’ he says, ‘where the English laws and manners + are unknown, the very chief of the Irish, as well men as women, go + naked in the winter time, only having their privy parts covered with + a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak + of my own experience; yet remember that a Bohemian baron coming out + of Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild Irish, told me in + great earnestness, that he, coming to the house of O’Kane, a great + lord amongst them, was met at the door by sixteen women, all naked, + excepting their loose mantles, whereof eight or ten were very fair; + with which strange sight his eyes being dazzled, they led him into + the house, and then sitting down by the fire, with crossed legs, like + tailors, and so low as could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him + to sit down with them. Soon after, O’Kane, the lord of the country, + came in all naked, except a loose mantle and shoes, which he put off + as soon as he came in; and, entertaining the Baron after his best + manner in the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which + he thought to be a burden to him, and to sit naked. + + “‘To conclude, men and women at night going to sleep, he thus naked + in a round circle about the fire, with their feet towards it. They + fold their heads and their upper parts in woollen mantles, first + steeped in water to keep them warm; for they say, that woollen cloth, + wetted, preserves heat (as linen, wetted, preserves cold), when the + smoke of their bodies has warmed the woollen cloth.’ + + “The cause of this extreme poverty, and of its long continuance, we + must conclude, arose from the peculiar laws of property which were in + force under the Irish dynasties. These laws have been described by + most writers as similar to the Kentish custom of gavelkind; and, + indeed, so little attention was paid to the subject, that were it not + for the researches of Sir J. Davis, the knowledge of this singular + usage would have been entirely lost. + + “The Brehon law of property, he tells us, was similar to the custom + (as the English lawyers term it) of hodge-podge. When any one of the + sept died, his lands did not descend to his sons, but were divided + among the whole sept: and, for this purpose, the chief of the sept + made a new division of the whole lands belonging to the sept, and + gave every one his part according to seniority. So that no man had a + property which could descend to his children; and even during his own + life his possession of any particular spot was quite uncertain, being + liable to be constantly shuffled and changed by new partitions. The + consequence of this was that there was not a house of brick or stone + among the Irish down to the reign of Henry VII.; not even a garden or + orchard, or well-fenced or improved field; neither village or town, + or in any respect the least provision for posterity. This monstrous + custom, so opposite to the natural feelings of mankind, was probably + perpetuated by the policy of the chiefs. In the first place the + power of partitioning being lodged in their hands, made them the most + absolute of tyrants, being the dispensers of the property as well as + of the liberty of their subjects. In the second place, it had the + appearance of adding to the number of their savage armies; for where + there was no improvement or tillage, war was pursued as an + occupation. + + “In the early history of Ireland, we find several instances of + chieftains discountenancing tillage; and so late as Elizabeth’s + reign, Moryson says, that ‘Sir Neal Garve restrained his people from + ploughing, that they might assist him to do any mischief.’”—(pp. + 99–102). + +These quotations and observations will enable us to state a few plain +facts for the recollection of our English readers:—1st, Ireland was never +subdued till the rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 2nd, For +four hundred years before that period the two nations had been almost +constantly at war; and in consequence of this, a deep and irreconcilable +hatred existed between the people within and without the pale. 3rd, The +Irish, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, were unquestionably the most +barbarous people in Europe. So much for what had happened previous to +the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and let any man, who has the most +superficial knowledge of human affairs, determine whether national +hatred, proceeding from such powerful causes, could possibly have been +kept under by the defeat of one single rebellion—whether it would not +have been easy to have foreseen, at that period, that a proud, brave, +half-savage people, would cherish the memory of their wrongs for +centuries to come, and break forth into arms at every period when they +were particularly exasperated by oppression, or invited by opportunity. +If the Protestant religion had spread in Ireland as it did in England, +and if there had never been any difference of faith between the two +countries—can it be believed that the Irish, ill-treated and infamously +governed as they have been, would never have made any efforts to shake +off the yoke of England? Surely there are causes enough to account for +their impatience of that yoke, without endeavouring to inflame the zeal +of ignorant people against the Catholic religion, and to make that mode +of faith responsible for all the butchery which the Irish and English for +these last two centuries have exercised upon each other. Everybody, of +course, must admit, that if to the causes of hatred already specified +there be added the additional cause of religious distinction, this last +will give greater force (and what is of more consequence to observe, give +a _name_) to the whole aggregate motive. But what Mr. Parnell contends +for, and clearly and decisively proves, is that many of those sanguinary +scenes attributed to the Catholic religion are to be partly imputed to +causes totally disconnected from religion; that the unjust invasion, and +the tyrannical, infamous policy of the English, are to take their full +share of blame with the sophisms and plots of Catholic priests. In the +reign of Henry VIII., Mr. Parnell shows that feudal submission was +readily paid to him by all the Irish chiefs; that the Reformation was +received without the slightest opposition; and that the troubles which +took place at that period in Ireland are to be entirely attributed to the +ambition and injustice of Henry. In the reign of Queen Mary there was no +recrimination upon the Protestants—a striking proof that the bigotry of +the Catholic religion had not at that period risen to any great height in +Ireland. The insurrections of the various Irish princes were as numerous +during this reign as they had been in the two preceding reigns—a +circumstance rather difficult of explanation, if, as is commonly +believed, the Catholic religion was at that period the main-spring of +men’s actions. + +In the reign of Elizabeth, the Catholic in the pale regularly fought +against the Catholic out of the pale. O’Sullivan, a bigoted Papist, +reproaches them with doing so. Speaking of the reign of James I., he +says, “And now the eyes even of the English Irish (the Catholics of the +pale) were opened; and they cursed their former folly for helping the +heretic.” The English Government were so sensible of the loyalty of the +Irish English Catholics that they entrusted them with the most +confidential services. The Earl of Kildare was the principal instrument +in waging war against the chieftains of Leix and Offal. William +O’Bourge, another Catholic, was created Lord Castle Connel for his +eminent services; and MacGully Patrick, a priest, was the State spy. We +presume that this wise and _manly_ conduct of Queen Elizabeth was utterly +unknown both to the Pastrycook and the Secretary of State, who have +published upon the dangers of employing Catholics even against foreign +enemies; and in those publications have said a great deal about the +wisdom of our ancestors—the usual topic whenever the folly of their +descendants is to be defended. To whatever other of our ancestors they +may allude, they may spare all compliments to this illustrious Princess, +who would certainly have kept the worthy confectioner to the composition +of tarts, and most probably furnished him with the productions of the +Right Honourable Secretary as the means of conveying those juicy +delicacies to a hungry and discerning public. + +In the next two reigns, Mr. Parnell shows by what injudicious measures of +the English Government the spirit of Catholic opposition was gradually +formed; for that it did produce powerful effects at a subsequent period +he does not deny; but contends only (as we have before stated) that these +effects have been much overrated, and ascribed _solely_ to the Catholic +religion when other causes have at least had an equal agency in bringing +them about. He concludes with some general remarks on the dreadful state +of Ireland, and the contemptible folly and bigotry of the English—remarks +full of truth, of good sense, and of political courage. How melancholy +to reflect, that there would be still some chance of saving England from +the general wreck of empires, but that it may not be saved, because one +politician will lose two thousand a year by it, and another three +thousand—a third a place in reversion, and a fourth a pension for his +aunt! Alas! these are the powerful causes which have always settled the +destiny of great kingdoms, and which may level Old England, with all its +boasted freedom, and boasted wisdom, to the dust. Nor is it the least +singular, among the political phenomena of the present day, that the sole +consideration which seems to influence the unbigoted part of the English +people, in this great question of Ireland, is a regard for the personal +feelings of the Monarch. Nothing is said or thought of the enormous risk +to which Ireland is exposed—nothing of the gross injustice with which the +Catholics are treated—nothing of the lucrative apostasy of those from +whom they experience this treatment: but the only concern by which we all +seem to be agitated is, that the King must not be vexed in his old age. +We have a great respect for the King; and wish him all the happiness +compatible with the happiness of his people. But these are not times to +pay foolish compliments to kings, or the sons of kings, or to anybody +else; this journal (the _Edinburgh Review_) has always preserved its +character for courage and honesty; and it shall do so to the last. If +the people of this country are solely occupied in considering what is +personally agreeable to the King, without considering what is for his +permanent good, and for the safety of his dominions; if all public men, +quitting the common vulgar scramble for emolument, do not concur in +conciliating the people of Ireland; if the unfounded alarms, and the +comparatively trifling interests of the clergy, are to supersede the +great question of freedom or slavery, it does appear to us quite +impossible that so mean and so foolish a people can escape that +destruction which is ready to burst upon them—a destruction so imminent +that it can only be averted by arming all in our defence who would +evidently be sharers in our ruin—and by such a change of system as may +save us from the hazard of being ruined by the ignorance and cowardice of +any general, by the bigotry or the ambition of any minister, or by the +well-meaning scruples of any human being, let his dignity be what it may. +These minor and domestic dangers we must endeavour firmly and temperately +to avert as we best can; but at all hazards we must keep out the +destroyer from among us, or perish like wise and brave men in the +attempt. + + + + +IRELAND AND ENGLAND. + + +1. _Whitelaw’s History of the City of Dublin_. 4to. Cadell and Davies. + +2. _Observations on the State of Ireland_, _principally directed to its +Agriculture and Rural Population_; _in a Series of Letters written on a +Tour through that Country_. In 2 vols. By J. C. CURWEN, Esq., M.P. +London, 1818. + +3. _Gamble’s Views of Society in Ireland_. + + * * * * * + +THESE are all the late publications that treat of Irish interests in +general, and none of them are of first-rate importance. Mr. Gamble’s +“Travels in Ireland” are of a very ordinary description, low scenes and +low humour making up the principal part of the narrative. There are +readers, however, whom it will amuse; and the reading market becomes more +and more extensive, and embraces a greater variety of persons every day. +Mr. Whitelaw’s “History of Dublin” is a book of great accuracy and +research, highly creditable to the industry, good sense, and benevolence +of its author. Of the “Travels” of Mr. Christian Curwen we hardly know +what to say. He is bold and honest in his politics, a great enemy to +abuses, vapid in his levity and pleasantry, and infinitely too much +inclined to declaim upon commonplace topics of morality and benevolence. +But, with these drawbacks, the book is not ill-written, and may be +advantageously read by those who are desirous of information upon the +present state of Ireland. + +So great and so long has been the misgovernment of that country, that we +verily believe the empire would be much stronger if everything was open +sea between England and the Atlantic, and if _skates and cod-fish_ swam +over the fair land of Ulster. Such jobbing, such profligacy, so much +direct tyranny and oppression, such an abuse of God’s gifts, such a +profanation of God’s name for the purposes of bigotry and party spirit, +cannot be exceeded in the history of civilised Europe, and will long +remain a monument of infamy and shame to England. But it will be more +useful to suppress the indignation which the very name of Ireland +inspires, and to consider impartially those causes which have marred this +fair portion of the creation, and kept it wild and savage in the midst of +improving Europe. + +The great misfortune of Ireland is that the mass of the people have been +given up for a century to a handful of Protestants, by whom they have +been treated as _Helots_, and subjected to every species of persecution +and disgrace. The sufferings of the Catholics have been so loudly +chanted in the very streets, that it is almost needless to remind our +readers that, during the reigns of George I. and George II., the Irish +Roman Catholics were disabled from holding any civil or military office, +from voting at elections, from admission into corporations, from +practising law or physic. A younger brother, by turning Protestant, +might deprive his elder brother of his birthright; by the same process he +might force his father, under the name of a liberal provision, to yield +up to him a part of his landed property; and, if an eldest son, he might, +in the same way, reduce his father’s fee-simple to a life-estate. A +Papist was disabled from purchasing freehold lands, and even from holding +long leases; and any person might take his Catholic neighbour’s house by +paying £5 for it. If the child of a Catholic father turned Protestant he +was taken away from his father and put into the hands of a Protestant +relation. No Papist could purchase a freehold or lease for more than +thirty years, or inherit from an intestate Protestant, nor from an +intestate Catholic, nor dwell in Limerick or Galway, nor hold an +advowson, nor buy an annuity for life. £50 was given for discovering a +Popish archbishop, £30 for a Popish clergyman, and 10s. for a +schoolmaster. No one was allowed to be trustee for Catholics; no +Catholic was allowed to take more than two apprentices; no Papist to be +solicitor, sheriff, or to serve on Grand Juries. Horses of Papists might +be seized for the militia, for which militia Papists were to pay double, +and to find Protestant substitutes. Papists were prohibited from being +present at vestries, or from being high or petty constables: and, when +resident in towns, they were compelled to find Protestant watchmen. +Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics were exposed to the +penalties of Catholics. Persons plundered by privateers during a war +with any Popish prince were reimbursed by a levy on the Catholic +inhabitants where they lived. All Popish priests celebrating marriages +contrary to 12 Geo. I., cap 3, were to be _hanged_! + +The greater part of these incapacities are removed, though many of a very +serious and oppressive nature still remain. But the grand misfortune is +that the spirit which these oppressive laws engendered remains. The +Protestant still looks upon the Catholic as a degraded being. The +Catholic does not yet consider himself upon an equality with his former +tyrant and taskmaster. That religious hatred which required all the +prohibiting vigilance of the law for its restraint has found in the law +its strongest support; and the spirit which the law first exasperated and +embittered continues to act long after the original _stimulus_ is +withdrawn. The law which prevented Catholics from serving on Grand +Juries is repealed; but Catholics are not called upon Grand Juries in the +proportion in which they are entitled by their rank and fortune. The +Duke of Bedford did all he could to give them the benefit of those laws +which are already passed in their favour. But power is seldom entrusted +in this country to one of the Duke of Bedford’s liberality, and +everything has fallen back in the hands of his successors into the +ancient division of the privileged and degraded castes. We do not mean +to cast any reflection upon the present Secretary for Ireland, whom we +believe to be upon this subject a very liberal politician, and on all +subjects an honourable and excellent man. The Government under which he +serves allows him to indulge in a little harmless liberality; but it is +perfectly understood that nothing is intended to be done for the +Catholics; that no loaves and fishes will be lost by indulgence in +Protestant insolence and tyranny; and, therefore, among the generality of +Irish Protestants, insolence, tyranny, and exclusion continue to operate. +However eligible the Catholic may be, he is not elected; whatever +barriers may be thrown down, he does not advance a step. He was first +kept out by law; he is now kept out by opinion and habit. They have been +so long in chains that nobody believes they are capable of using their +hands and feet. + +It is not, however, the only or the worst misfortune of the Catholics +that the relaxations of the law are hitherto of little benefit to them; +the law is not yet sufficiently relaxed. A Catholic, as everybody knows, +cannot be made sheriff; cannot be in parliament; cannot be a director of +the Irish Bank; cannot fill the great departments of the law, the army, +and the navy; is cut off from all the high objects of human ambition, and +treated as a marked and degraded person. + +The common admission now is that the Catholics are to the Protestants in +Ireland as about four to one, of which Protestants not more than _one +half_ belong to the Church of Ireland. This, then, is one of the most +striking features in the state of Ireland. That the great mass of the +population is completely subjugated and overawed by a handful of +comparatively recent settlers, in whom all the power and patronage of the +country is vested, who have been reluctantly compelled to desist from +still greater abuses of authority, and who look with trembling +apprehension to the increasing liberality of the parliament and the +country towards these unfortunate persons whom they have always looked +upon as their property and their prey. + +Whatever evils may result from these proportions between the oppressor +and oppressed—to whatever dangers a country so situated may be considered +to be exposed, these evils and dangers are rapidly increasing in Ireland. +The proportion of Catholics to Protestants is infinitely greater now than +it was thirty years ago, and is becoming more and more favourable to the +former. By a return made to the Irish House of Lords in 1732 the +proportion of Catholics to Protestants was not two to one. It is now (as +we have already observed) four to one; and the causes which have thus +altered the proportions in favour of the Catholics are sufficiently +obvious to any one acquainted with the state of Ireland. The Roman +Catholic priest resides; his income entirely depends upon the number of +his flock; and he must exert himself or he starves. There is some chance +of success, therefore, in _his_ efforts to convert; but the Protestant +clergyman, if he were equally eager, has little or no probability of +persuading so much larger a proportion of the population to come over to +his Church. The Catholic clergyman belongs to a religion that has always +been more desirous of gaining proselytes than the Protestant Church; and +he is animated by a sense of injury and a desire of revenge. Another +reason for the disproportionate increase of Catholics is that the +Catholics will marry upon means which the Protestant considers as +insufficient for marriage. A few potatoes and a shed of turf are all +that Luther has left for the Romanist; and, when the latter gets these, +he instantly begins upon the great Irish manufacture of children. But a +Protestant belongs to the sect that eats the fine flour and heaves the +bran to others; he must have comforts, and he does not marry till he gets +them. He would be ashamed if he were seen living as a Catholic lives. +This is the principal reason why the Protestants who remain attached to +their Church do not increase so fast as the Catholics. But in common +minds, daily scenes, the example of the majority, the power of imitation, +decide their habits, religious as well as civil. A Protestant labourer +who works among Catholics soon learns to think and act and talk as they +do; he is not proof against the eternal panegyric which he hears of +Father O’Leary. His Protestantism is rubbed away, and he goes at last, +after some little resistance, to the chapel where he sees everybody else +going. + +These eight Catholics not only hate the ninth man, the Protestant of the +Establishment, for the unjust privileges he enjoys—not only remember that +the lands of their father were given to his father—but they find +themselves forced to pay for the support of his religion. In the +wretched state of poverty in which the lower orders of Irish are plunged, +it is not without considerable effort that they can pay the few shillings +necessary for the support of their Catholic priest; and when this is +effected, a tenth of the potatoes in the garden are to be set out for the +support of a persuasion, the introduction of which into Ireland they +consider as the great cause of their political inferiority, and all their +manifold wretchedness. In England a labourer can procure constant +employment, or he can, at the worst, obtain relief from his parish. +Whether tithe operates as a tax upon him, is known only to the political +economist: if he does pay it, he does not know that he pays it, and the +burden of supporting the Clergy is at least kept out of his view. But in +Ireland, the only method in which a poor man lives is by taking a small +portion of land in which he can grow potatoes: seven or eight months out +of twelve, in many parts of Ireland, there is no constant employment of +the poor; and the potato farm is all that shelters them from absolute +famine. If the Pope were to come in person, seize upon every tenth +potato, the poor peasant would scarcely endure it. With what patience, +then, can he see it tossed into the cart of the heretic rector, who has a +church without a congregation, and a revenue without duties? We do not +say whether these things are right or wrong, whether they want a remedy +at all, or what remedy they want; but we paint them in those colours in +which they appear to the eye of poverty and ignorance, without saying +whether those colours are false or true. Nor is the case at all +comparable to that of Dissenters paying tithe in England; which case is +precisely the reverse of what happens in Ireland, for it is the +contribution of a very small minority to the religion of a very large +majority; and the numbers on either side make all the difference in the +argument. To exasperate the poor Catholic still more, the rich graziers +of the parish, or the squire in his parish, pay no tithe at all for their +grass land. Agistment tithe is abolished in Ireland, and the burthen of +supporting two Churches seems to devolve upon the poorer Catholics, +struggling with plough and spade in small scraps of dearly-rented land. +Tithes seem to be collected in a more harsh manner than they are +collected in England. The minute sub-divisions of land in Ireland—the +little connection which the Protestant clergyman commonly has with the +Catholic population of his parish—have made the introduction of tithe +proctors very general, sometimes as the agent of the clergyman, sometimes +as the lessee or middleman between the clergyman and the cultivator of +the land, but, in either case, practised, dexterous estimators of tithe. +The English clergymen in general are far from exacting the whole of what +is due to them, but sacrifice a little to the love of popularity or to +the dread of odium. A system of tithe-proctors established all over +England (as it is in Ireland), would produce general disgust and +alienation from the Established Church. + + “During the administration of Lord Halifax,” says Mr. Hardy, in + quoting the opinion of Lord Charlemont upon tithes paid by Catholics, + “Ireland was dangerously disturbed in its southern and northern + regions. In the south principally, in the counties of Kilkenny, + Limerick, Cork, and Tipperary, the White Boys now made their first + appearance; those White Boys who have ever since occasionally + disturbed the public tranquillity, without any rational method having + been as yet pursued to eradicate this disgraceful evil. When we + consider that the very same district has been for the long space of + seven-and-twenty years liable to frequent returns of the same + disorder into which it has continually relapsed, in spite of all the + violent remedies from time to time administered by our political + quacks, we cannot doubt but that some real, peculiar, and topical + cause must exist, and yet neither the removal, nor even the + investigation of this cause, has ever once been seriously attempted. + Laws of the most sanguinary and unconstitutional nature have been + enacted; the country has been disgraced and exasperated by frequent + and bloody executions; and the gibbet, that perpetual resource of + weak and cruel legislators, has groaned under the multitude of + starving criminals; yet, while the cause is suffered to exist, the + effects will ever follow. The amputation of limbs will never + eradicate a prurient humour, which must be sought in its source and + there remedied.” + + “I wish,” continues Mr. Wakefield, “for the sake of humanity and for + the honour of the Irish character, that the gentlemen of that country + would take this matter into their serious consideration. Let them + only for a moment place themselves in the situation of the + half-famished cotter, surrounded by a wretched family clamorous for + food, and judge what his feelings must be when he sees the tenth part + of the produce of his potato garden exposed at harvest time to public + _cant_, or if he have given a promissory note for the payment of a + certain sum of money to compensate for such tithe when it becomes + due, to hear the heart-rending cries of his offspring clinging round + him, and lamenting for the milk of which they are deprived by the + cows being driven to the pound to be sold to discharge the debt. + Such accounts are not the creations of fancy; the facts do exist, and + are but too common in Ireland. Were one of them transferred to + canvas by the hand of genius, and exhibited to English humanity, that + heart must be callous indeed that could refuse its sympathy. I have + seen the cow, the favourite cow, driven away, accompanied by the + sighs, the tears, and the imprecations of a whole family, who were + paddling after, through wet and dirt, to take their last affectionate + farewell of this their only friend and benefactor at the pound gate. + I have heard with emotions which I can scarcely describe, deep curses + repeated from village to village as the cavalcade proceeded. I have + witnessed the group pass the domain walls of the opulent grazier, + whose numerous herds were cropping the most luxuriant pastures, while + he was secure from any demand for the tithe of their food, looking on + with the most unfeeling indifference.”—Ibid., p. 486. + +In Munster, where tithe of potatoes is exacted, risings against the +system have constantly occurred during the last forty years. In Ulster, +where no such tithe is required, these insurrections are unknown. The +double Church which Ireland supports, and that painful visible +contribution towards it which the poor Irishman is compelled to make from +his miserable pittance, is one great cause of those never-ending +insurrections, burnings, murders, and robberies, which have laid waste +that ill-fated country for so many years. The unfortunate consequence of +the civil disabilities, and the Church payments under which the Catholics +labour, is a rooted antipathy to this country. They hate the English +Government from historical recollection, actual suffering, and +disappointed hope, and till they are better treated they will continue to +hate it. At this moment, in a period of the most profound peace, there +are twenty-five thousand of the best disciplined and best appointed +troops in the world in Ireland, with bayonets fixed, presented arms, and +in the attitude of present war: nor is there a man too much—nor would +Ireland be tenable without them. When it was necessary last year (or +thought necessary) to put down the children of reform, we were forced to +make a new levy of troops in this country; not a man could be spared from +Ireland. The moment they had embarked, Peep-of-Day Boys, Heart-of-Oak +Boys, Twelve-o’-clock Boys, Heart-of-Flint Boys, and all the bloody +boyhood of the Bog of Allen, would have proceeded to the ancient work of +riot, rapine, and disaffection. Ireland, in short, till her wrongs are +redressed and a more liberal policy is adopted towards her, will always +be a cause of anxiety and suspicion to this country, and in some moment +of our weakness and depression, will forcibly extort what she would now +receive with gratitude and exultation. + +Ireland is situated close to another island of greater size, speaking the +same language, very superior in civilisation, and the seat of government. +The consequence of this is the emigration of the richest and most +powerful part of the community—a vast drain of wealth—and the absence of +all that wholesome influence which the representatives of ancient +families, residing upon their estates, produce upon their tenantry and +dependents. Can any man imagine that the scenes which have been acted in +Ireland, within these last twenty years, would have taken place, if such +vast proprietors as the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Hertford, the +Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Fitzwilliam, and many other men of equal +wealth, had been in the constant habit of residing upon their Irish as +they are upon their English estates? Is it of no consequence to the +order and the civilisation of a large district, whether the great mansion +is inhabited by an insignificant, perhaps a mischievous attorney, in the +shape of agent, or whether the first and greatest men of the United +Kingdoms, after the business of Parliament is over, come with their +friends and families, to exercise hospitality, to spend large revenues, +to diffuse information, and to improve manners? This evil is a very +serious one to Ireland; and, as far as we see, incurable. For if the +present large estates were, by the dilapidation of families, to be broken +to pieces and sold, others equally great would, in the free circulation +of property, speedily accumulate; and the moment any possessor arrived at +a certain pitch of fortune, he would probably choose to reside in the +better country—near the Parliament, or the Court. + +This absence of great proprietors in Ireland necessarily brings with it, +or if not necessarily, has actually brought with it, the employment of +the middlemen, which forms one other standing and regular Irish +grievance. We are well aware of all that can be said in defence of +middlemen; that they stand between the little farmer and the great +proprietor as the shopkeeper does between the manufacturer and consumer; +and, in fact, by their intervention, save time, and therefore expense. +This may be true enough in the abstract; but the particular nature of +land must be attended to. The object of the man who makes cloth is to +sell his cloth at the present market, for as high a price as he can +obtain. If that price is too high, it soon falls; but no injury is done +to his machinery by the superior price he has enjoyed for a season—he is +just as able to produce cloth with it, as if the profits he enjoyed had +always been equally moderate; he has no fear, therefore, of the +middleman, or of any species of moral machinery which may help to obtain +for him the greatest present prices. The same would be the feeling of +any one who let out a steam-engine, or any other machine, for the +purposes of manufacture; he would naturally take the highest price he +could get; for he might either let his machine for a price proportionate +to the work it did, or the repairs, estimable with the greatest +precision, might be thrown upon the tenant; in short, he could hardly ask +any rent too high for his machine which a responsible person would give; +dilapidation would be so visible, and so calculable in such instances, +that any secondary lease, or subletting, would be rather an increase of +security than a source of alarm. Any evil from such a practice would be +improbable measurable, and remediable. In land, on the contrary, the +object is not to get the highest prices absolutely, but to get the +highest prices which will not injure the machine. One tenant may offer +and pay double the rent of another, and in a few years leave the land in +a state which will effectually bar all future offers of tenancy. It is +of no use to fill a lease full of clauses and covenants; a tenant who +pays more than he ought to pay, or who pays even to the last farthing +which he ought to pay, will rob the land, and injure the machine, in +spite of all the attorneys in England. He will rob it even if he means +to remain upon it—driven on by present distress, and anxious to put off +the day of defalcation and arrear. The damage is often difficult of +detection—not easily calculated, not easily to be proved; such for which +juries (themselves perhaps farmers) will not willingly give sufficient +compensation. And if this be true in England, it is much more strikingly +true in Ireland, where it is extremely difficult to obtain verdicts for +breaches of covenant in leases. + +The only method, then, of guarding the machine from real injury, is by +giving to the actual occupier such advantage in his contract, that he is +unwilling to give it up—that he has a real interest in retaining it, and +is not driven by the distresses of the present moment to destroy the +future productiveness of the soil. Any rent which the landlord accepts +more than this, or any system by which more rent than this is obtained, +is to borrow money upon the most usurious and profligate interest—to +increase the revenue of the present day by the absolute ruin of the +property. Such is the effect produced by a middleman; he gives high +prices that he may obtain higher from the occupier; more is paid by the +actual occupier than is consistent with the safety and preservation of +the machine; the land is run out, and, in the end, that maximum of rent +we have described is not obtained; and not only is the property injured +by such a system, but in Ireland the most shocking consequences ensue +from it. There is little manufacture in Ireland; the price of labour is +low, the demand for labour irregular. If a poor man be driven, by +distress of rent, from his potato garden, he has no other resource—all is +lost: he will do the impossible (as the French say) to retain it; +subscribe any bond, and promise any rent. The middleman has no character +to lose; and he knew, when he took up the occupation, that it was one +with which pity had nothing to do. On he drives; and backward the poor +peasant recedes, loses something at every step, till he comes to the very +brink of despair; and then he recoils and murders his oppressor, and is a +_White Boy_ or a _Right Boy_;—the soldier shoots him, and the judge hangs +him. + +In the debate which took place in the Irish House of Commons, upon the +Bill for preventing tumultuous risings and assemblies, on the 31st of +January, 1787, the Attorney-General submitted to the House the following +narrative of facts. + + “The commencement,” said he, “was in one or two parishes in the + county of Kerry; and they proceeded thus. The people assembled in a + Catholic chapel, and there took an oath to obey the laws of Captain + Right, and to starve the clergy. They then proceeded to the next + parishes on the following Sunday, and there swore the people in the + same manner; with this addition, that they (the people last sworn) + should on the ensuing Sunday proceed to the chapels of their next + neighbouring parishes and swear the inhabitants of those parishes in + like manner. Proceeding in this manner, they very soon went through + the province of Munster. The first object was the _reformation of + tithes_. They swore not to give more than a certain price per acre, + not to assist or allow them to be assisted in drawing the tithe, and + to permit _no proctor_. They next took upon them to prevent the + collection of parish cesses, next to nominate parish clerks, and in + some cases curates, to say what church should or should not be + repaired, and in one case to threaten that they would burn a _new_ + church if the _old_ one were not given for a mass-house. At last + they proceeded to regulate the price of lands, to raise the price of + labour, and to oppose the collection of the hearth-money and other + taxes. Bodies of 5,000 of them have been seen to march through the + country unarmed, and, if met by any magistrate, _they never offered + the smallest rudeness or offence_; on the contrary, they had allowed + persons charged with crimes to be taken from amongst them by the + magistrate _alone_, unaided by any force. + + “The Attorney-General said he was well acquainted with the province + of Munster, and that it was impossible for human wretchedness to + _exceed that of the peasantry of that province_. The unhappy + tenantry were _ground to powder_ by relentless landlords; that, far + from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they had not food + or raiment for themselves—the landlord grasped the whole; and sorry + was he to add that, not satisfied with the present extortion, some + landlords had been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the + clergy of their tithes, not in order to alleviate the distresses of + the tenantry, but that they might add the clergy’s share to the cruel + rack-rents they already paid. The poor people of Munster lived in a + _more abject state of poverty than human nature could be supposed + equal to bear_.”—“Grattan’s Speeches,” vol. i., p. 292. + +We are not, of course, in such a discussion to be governed by names. A +middleman might be tied up by the strongest legal restriction, as to the +price he was to exact from the under-tenants, and then he would be no +more pernicious to the estate than a steward. A steward might be +protected in exactions as severe as the most rapacious middleman; and +then, of course, it would be the same thing under another name. The +practice to which we object is the too common method in Ireland of +extorting the last farthing which the tenant is willing to give for land +rather than quit it: and the machinery by which such practice is carried +into effect is that of the middleman. It is not only that it ruins the +land; it ruins the people also. They are made so poor—brought so near +the ground—that they can sink no lower; and burst out at last into all +the acts of desperation and revenge for which Ireland is so notorious. +Men who have money in their pockets, and find that they are improving in +their circumstances, don’t do these things. Opulence, or the hope of +opulence or comfort, is the parent of decency, order, and submission to +the laws. A landlord in Ireland understands the luxury of carriages and +horses, but has no relish for the greater luxury of surrounding himself +with a moral and grateful tenantry. The absent proprietor looks only to +revenue, and cares nothing for the disorder and degradation of a country +which he never means to visit. There are very honourable exceptions to +this charge: but there are too many living instances that it is just. +The rapacity of the Irish landlord induces him to allow of the extreme +division of his lands. When the daughter marries, a little portion of +the little farm is broken off—another corner for Patrick, and another for +Dermot—till the land is broken into sections, upon one of which an +English cow could not stand. Twenty mansions of misery are thus reared +instead of one. A louder cry of oppression is lifted up to heaven, and +fresh enemies to the English name and power are multiplied on the earth. +The Irish gentleman, too, extremely desirous of political influence, +multiplying freeholds, and splitting votes; and this propensity tends of +course to increase the miserable redundance of living beings, under which +Ireland is groaning. Among the manifold wretchedness to which the poor +Irish tenant is liable, we must not pass over the practice of driving for +rent. A lets land to B, who lets it to C, who lets it again to D. D +pays C his rent, and C pays B. But if B fails to pay A, the cattle of B, +C, D are all driven to the pound, and after the interval of a few days +sold by auction. A general driving of this kind very frequently leads to +a bloody insurrection. It may be ranked among the classical grievances +of Ireland. + +Potatoes enter for a great deal into the present condition of Ireland. +They are much cheaper than wheat; and it is so easy to rear a family upon +them, that there is no cheek to population from the difficulty of +procuring food. The population therefore goes on with a rapidity +approaching almost to that of new countries, and in a much greater ratio +than the improving agriculture and manufacturers of the country can find +employment for it. All degrees of all nations begin with living in +pig-styes. The king or the priest first gets out of them; then the +noble, then the pauper; in proportion as each class becomes more and more +opulent. Better tastes arise from better circumstances; and the luxury +of one period is the wretchedness and poverty of another. English +peasants, in the time of Henry VII., were lodged as badly as Irish +peasants now are; but the population was limited by the difficulty of +procuring a corn subsistence. The improvements of this kingdom were more +rapid; the price of labour rose; and with it the luxury and comfort of +the peasant, who is now decently lodged and clothed, and who would think +himself in the last stage of wretchedness if he had nothing but an iron +pot in a turf house, and plenty of potatoes in it. The use of the potato +was introduced into Ireland when the wretched accommodation of her own +peasantry bore some proportion to the state of those accommodations all +over Europe. But they have increased their population so fast, and, in +conjunction with the oppressive government of Ireland retarding +improvement, have kept the price of labour so low, that the Irish poor +have never been able to emerge from their mud cabins, or to acquire any +taste for cleanliness and decency of appearance. Mr. Curwen has the +following description of Irish cottages:— + + “These mansions of miserable existence, for so they may truly be + described, conformably to our general estimation of those + indispensable comforts requisite to constitute the happiness of + rational beings, are most commonly composed of two rooms on the + ground floor, a most appropriate term, for they are literally on the + earth, the surface of which is not unfrequently reduced a foot or + more to save the expense of so much outward walling. The one is a + refectory, the other the dormitory. The furniture of the former, if + the owner ranks in the upper part of the scale of scantiness, will + consist of a kitchen dresser, well provided and highly decorated with + crockery—not less apparently the pride of the husband than the result + of female vanity in the wife: which, with a table, a chest, a few + stools, and an iron pot, complete the catalogue of conveniences + generally found as belonging to the cabin: while a spinning-wheel, + furnished by the Linen Board, and a loom, ornament vacant spaces that + otherwise would remain unfurnished. In fitting up the latter, which + cannot on any occasion or by any display add a feather to the weight + or importance expected to be excited by the appearance of the former, + the inventory is limited to one, and sometimes two beds, serving for + the repose of the whole family! However downy these may be to limbs + impatient for rest, their coverings appear to be very slight, and the + whole of the apartment created reflections of a very painful nature. + Under such privations, with a wet mud floor and a roof in tatters, + how idle the search for comforts!”—_Curwen_, _i._, pp. 112, 113. + +To this extract we shall add one more on the same subject. + + “The gigantic figure, bareheaded before me, had a beard that would + not have disgraced an ancient Israelite—he was without shoes or + stockings—and almost a sans-culotte—with a coat, or rather a jacket, + that appeared as if the first blast of wind would tear it to tatters. + Though his garb was thus tattered, he had a manly commanding + countenance. I asked permission to see the inside of his cabin, to + which I received his most courteous assent. On stooping to enter at + the door I was stopped, and found that permission from another was + necessary before I could be admitted. A pig, which was fastened to a + stake driven into the floor, with length of rope sufficient to permit + him the enjoyment of sun and air, demanded some courtesy, which I + showed him, and was suffered to enter. The wife was engaged in + boiling thread, and by her side, near the fire, a lovely infant was + sleeping, without any covering, on a bare board. Whether the fire + gave additional glow to the countenance of the babe, or that Nature + impressed on its unconscious cheek a blush that the lot of man should + be exposed to such privations, I will not decide; but if the cause be + referable to the latter, it was in perfect unison with my own + feelings. Two or three other children crowded round the mother: on + their rosy countenances health seemed established in spite of filth + and ragged garments. The dress of the poor woman was barely + sufficient to satisfy decency. Her countenance bore the expression + of a set melancholy, tinctured with an appearance of ill health. The + hovel, which did not exceed twelve or fifteen feet in length and ten + in breadth, was half obscured by smoke—chimney or window I saw none; + the door served the various purposes of an inlet to light and the + outlet to smoke. The furniture consisted of two stools, an iron pot, + and a spinning-wheel, while a sack stuffed with straw, and a single + blanket laid on planks, served as a bed for the repose of the whole + family. Need I attempt to describe my sensations? The statement + alone cannot fail of conveying to a mind like yours an adequate idea + of them—I could not long remain a witness to this acme of human + misery. As I left the deplorable habitation the mistress followed me + to repeat her thanks for the trifle I had bestowed. This gave me an + opportunity of observing her person more particularly. She was a + tall figure, her countenance composed of interesting features, and + with every appearance of having once been handsome. + + “Unwilling to quit the village without first satisfying myself + whether what I had seen was a solitary instance or a sample of its + general state, or whether the extremity of poverty I had just beheld + had arisen from peculiar improvidence and want of management in one + wretched family, I went into an adjoining habitation, where I found a + poor old woman of eighty, whose miserable existence was painfully + continued by the maintenance of her granddaughter. Their condition, + if possible, was more deplorable.”—_Curwen_, i., pp. 181–183. + +This wretchedness, of which all strangers who visit Ireland are so +sensible, proceeds certainly in great measure from their accidental use +of a food so cheap, that it encourages population to an extraordinary +degree, lowers the price of labour, and leaves the multitudes which it +calls into existence almost destitute of everything but food. Many more +live in consequence of the introduction of potatoes; but all live in +greater wretchedness. In the progress of population, the potato must of +course become at last as difficult to be procured as any other food; and +then let the political economist calculate what the immensity and +wretchedness of a people must be, where the further progress of +population is checked by the difficulty of procuring potatoes. + +The consequence of the long mismanagement and oppression of Ireland, and +of the singular circumstances in which it is placed, is, that it is a +semi-barbarous country—more shame to those who have thus ill-treated a +fine country and a fine people; but it is part of the present case of +Ireland. The barbarism of Ireland is evinced by the frequency and +ferocity of duels—the hereditary clannish feuds of the common people and +the fights to which they give birth—the atrocious cruelties practised in +the insurrections of the common people—and their proneness to +insurrection. The lower Irish live in a state of greater wretchedness +than any other people in Europe inhabiting so fine a soil and climate. +It is difficult, often impossible, to execute the processes of law. In +cases where gentlemen are concerned, it is often not even attempted. The +conduct of under-sheriffs is often very corrupt. We are afraid the +magistracy of Ireland is very inferior to that of this country; the +spirit of jobbing and bribery is very widely diffused, and upon occasions +when the utmost purity prevails in the sister kingdom. Military force is +necessary all over the country, and often for the most common and just +operations of Government. The behaviour of the higher to the lower +orders is much less gentle and decent than in England. Blows from +superiors to inferiors are more frequent, and the punishment for such +aggression more doubtful. The word _gentleman_ seems, in Ireland, to put +an end to most processes at law. Arrest a gentleman!!!—take out a +warrant against a gentleman—are modes of operation not very common in the +administration of Irish justice. If a man strike the meanest peasant in +England, he is either knocked down in his turn, or immediately taken +before a magistrate. It is impossible to live in Ireland without +perceiving the various points in which it is inferior in civilisation. +Want of unity in feeling and interest among the people—irritability, +violence, and revenge—want of comfort and cleanliness in the lower +orders—habitual disobedience to the law—want of confidence in +magistrates—corruption, venality, the perpetual necessity of recurring to +military force—all carry back the observer to that remote and early +condition of mankind, which an Englishman can learn only in the pages of +the antiquary or the historian. We do not draw this picture for censure +but for truth. We admire the Irish—feel the most sincere pity for the +state of Ireland—and think the conduct of the English to that country to +have been a system of atrocious cruelty and contemptible meanness. With +such a climate, such a soil, and such a people, the inferiority of +Ireland to the rest of Europe is directly chargeable to the long +wickedness of the English Government. + +A direct consequence of the present uncivilised state of Ireland is, that +very little English capital travels there. The man who deals in +steam-engines, and warps and woofs, is naturally alarmed by Peep-of-Day +Boys, and nocturnal Carders; his object is to buy and sell as quickly and +quietly as he can, and he will naturally bear high taxes and rivalry in +England, or emigrate to any part of the Continent, or to America, rather +than plunge into the tumult of Irish politics and passions. There is +nothing which Ireland wants more than large manufacturing towns to take +off its superfluous population. But internal peace must come first, and +then the arts of peace will follow. The foreign manufacturer will hardly +think of embarking his capital where he cannot be sure that his existence +is safe. Another check to the manufacturing greatness of Ireland is the +scarcity, not of coal, but of good coal, cheaply raised—an article in +which (in spite of papers in the Irish Transactions) they are lamentably +inferior to the English. + +Another consequence from some of the causes we have stated is the extreme +idleness of the Irish labourer. There is nothing of the value of which +the Irish seem to have so little notion as that of time. They scratch, +pick, dawdle, stare, gape, and do anything but strive and wrestle with +the task before them. The most ludicrous of all human objects is an +Irishman ploughing. A gigantic figure—a seven-foot machine for turning +potatoes in human nature—wrapt up in an immense great-coat, and urging on +two starved ponies, with dreadful imprecations and uplifted shillala. +The Irish crow discerns a coming perquisite, and is not inattentive to +the proceedings of the steeds. The furrow which is to be the depository +of the future crop is not unlike, either in depth or regularity, to those +domestic furrows which the nails of the meek and much-injured wife +plough, in some family quarrel, upon the cheeks of the deservedly +punished husband. The weeds seem to fall contentedly, knowing that they +have fulfilled their destiny, and left behind them, for the resurrection +of the ensuing spring, an abundant and healthy progeny. The whole is a +scene of idleness, laziness, and poverty, of which it is impossible, in +this active and enterprising country, to form the most distant +conception; but strongly indicative of habits, whether secondary or +original, which will long present a powerful impediment to the +improvement of Ireland. + +The Irish character contributes something to retard the improvements of +that country. The Irishman has many good qualities: he is brave, witty, +generous, eloquent, hospitable, and open-hearted; but he is vain, +ostentatious, extravagant, and fond of display, light in counsel, +deficient in perseverance, without skill in private or public economy, an +enjoyer, not an acquirer—one who despises the slow and patient +virtues—who wants the superstructure without the foundation, the result +without the previous operation, the oak without the acorn and the three +hundred years of expectation. The Irish are irascible, prone to debt and +to fight, and very impatient of the restraints of law. Such a people are +not likely to keep their eyes steadily upon the main chance like the +Scotch or the Dutch. England strove very hard at one period to compel +the Scotch to pay a double Church, but Sawney took his pen and ink, and +finding what a sum it amounted to became furious and drew his sword. God +forbid the Irishman should do the same! The remedy now would be worse +than the disease; but if the oppressions of England had been more +steadily resisted a century ago, Ireland would not have been the scene of +poverty, misery, and distress which it now is. + +The Catholic religion, among other causes, contributes to the +backwardness and barbarism of Ireland. Its debasing superstition, +childish ceremonies, and the profound submission to the priesthood which +it teaches, all tend to darken men’s minds, to impede the progress of +knowledge and inquiry, and to prevent Ireland from becoming as free, as +powerful, and as rich as the sister kingdom. Though sincere friends to +Catholic emancipation, we are no advocates for the Catholic religion. We +should be very glad to see a general conversion to Protestantism among +the Irish, but we do not think that violence, privations, and +incapacities, are the proper methods of making proselytes. + +Such, then, is Ireland at this period—a land more barbarous than the rest +of Europe, because it has been worse treated and more cruelly oppressed. +Many of the incapacities and privations to which the Catholics were +exposed have been removed by law, but in such instances they are still +incapacitated and deprived by custom. Many cruel and oppressive laws are +still enforced against them. A tenth part of the population engrosses +all the honours of the country; the other nine pay a tenth of the product +of the earth for the support of a religion in which they do not believe. +There is little capital in the country. The great and rich men are +called by business, or allured by pleasure, into England; their estates +are given up to factors, and the utmost farthing of rent extorted from +the poor, who, if they give up the land, cannot get employment in +manufactures, or regular employment in husbandry. The common people use +a sort of food so very cheap that they can rear families who cannot +procure employment, and who have little more of the comforts of life than +food. The Irish are light-minded—want of employment has made them idle; +they are irritable and brave, have a keen remembrance of the past wrongs +they have suffered, and the present wrongs they are suffering from +England. The consequence of all this is, eternal riot and insurrection, +a whole army of soldiers in time of profound peace, and general rebellion +whenever England is busy with her other enemies or off her guard! And +thus it will be, while the same causes continue to operate, for ages to +come, and worse and worse as the rapidly increasing population of the +Catholics becomes more and more numerous. + +The remedies are time and justice, and that justice consists in repealing +all laws which make any distinction between the two religions; in placing +over the government of Ireland, not the stupid, amiable, and +insignificant noblemen who have too often been sent there, but men who +feel deeply the wrongs of Ireland, and who have an ardent wish to heal +them; who will take care that Catholics, when eligible, shall be elected; +who will share the patronage of Ireland proportionally among the two +parties, and give to just and liberal laws the same vigour of execution +which has hitherto been reserved only for decrees of tyranny, and the +enactments of oppression. The injustice and hardship of supporting two +Churches must be put out of sight, if it cannot or ought not to be cured. +The political economist, the moralist, and the satirist, must combine to +teach moderation and superintendence to the great Irish proprietors. +Public talk and clamour may do something for the poor Irish, as it did +for the slaves in the West Indies. Ireland will become more quiet under +such treatment, and then more rich, more comfortable, and more civilised; +and the horrid spectacle of folly and tyranny, which it at present +exhibits, may in time be removed from the eyes of Europe. + +There are two eminent Irishmen now in the House of Commons—Lord +Castlereagh and Mr. Canning—who will subscribe to the justness of every +syllable we have said upon this subject, and who have it in their power, +by making it the condition of their remaining in office, to liberate +their native country, and raise it to its just rank among the nations of +the earth. Yet the Court buys them over, year after year, by the pomp +and perquisites of office; and year after year they come into the House +of Commons, feeling deeply, and describing powerfully, the injuries of +five millions of their countrymen—and _continue_ members of a government +that inflicts those evils, under the pitiful delusion that it is not a +Cabinet Question, as if the scratchings and quarrellings of Kings and +Queens could alone cement politicians together in indissoluble unity, +while the fate and torture of one-third of the empire might be +complimented away from one minister to another, without the smallest +breach in their Cabinet alliance. Politicians, at least honest +politicians, should be very flexible and accommodating in little things, +very rigid and inflexible in great things. And is this _not_ a great +thing? Who has painted it in finer and more commanding eloquence than +Mr. Canning? Who has taken a more sensible and statesmanlike view of our +miserable and cruel policy than Lord Castlereagh? You would think, to +hear them, that the same planet could not contain them and the oppressors +of their country—perhaps not the same solar system. Yet for money, +claret, and patronage, they lend their countenance, assistance, and +friendship to the Ministers who are the stern and inflexible enemies to +the emancipation of Ireland! + +Thank God that all is not profligacy and corruption in the history of +that devoted people—and that the name of Irishman does not always carry +with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed—the plunderer or the +plundered—the tyrant or the slave! Great men hallow a whole people, and +lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud +that he has lived in the days of GRATTAN? who has not turned to him for +comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not +remember him in the days of its burnings and wastings and murders? No +Government ever dismayed him—the world could not bribe him—he thought +only of Ireland—lived for no other object—dedicated to her his beautiful +fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his +astonishing eloquence. He was so born and so gifted that poetry, +forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of +human genius were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation +of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line +he went on for fifty years, without one side-look, without one yielding +thought, without one motive in his heart which he might not have laid +open to the view of God and man. He is gone!—but there is not a single +day of his honest life of which every good Irishman would not be more +proud than of the whole political existence of his countrymen—the annual +deserters and betrayers of their native land. + + + + +MOORE’S CAPTAIN ROCK. + + +_Memoirs of Captain Rock_, _the celebrated Irish Chieftain_; _with some +Account of his Ancestors_. Written by Himself. Fourth Edition. 12mo. +London, 1824. + + * * * * * + +THIS agreeable and witty book is generally supposed to have been written +by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gentleman of small stature, but full of genius, +and a steady friend of all that is honourable and just. He has here +borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of +violence and insurrection which is necessarily generated by systematic +oppression, and rudely avenges its crimes; and the picture he has drawn +of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and +frightful. Its effect in exciting our horror and indignation is in the +long run increased, we think—though at first it may seem counteracted—by +the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to +veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at +first, and are amused, and wonder, as we proceed, that the humorous +narrative should produce conviction and pity—shame, abhorrence, and +despair. + +England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. +Brownrigg treated her apprentice—for which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in +the first volume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the +apprentice is better off than the Irishman; as Mrs. Brownrigg merely +starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to +any shop, or praying at any church her apprentice might select: and once +or twice, if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some +compassion. Not so Old England, who indulges rather in a steady +baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression. + +Let us select from this entertaining little book a short history of dear +Ireland, such as even some profligate idle member of the House of +Commons, voting as his master bids him, may perchance throw his eye upon, +and reflect for a moment upon the iniquity to which he lends his support. + +For some centuries after the reign of Henry II., the Irish were killed +like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used +does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels +as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well +backed by Ponto and Cæsar, Mr. O’Donnel or Mr. O’Leary bolted from the +thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. With Henry II. came +in tithes, to which, in all probability, about one million of lives may +have been sacrificed in Ireland. In the reign of Edward I. the Irish who +were settled near the English requested that the benefit of the English +laws might be extended to them; but the remonstrance of the barons with +the hesitating king was in substance this: “You have made us a present of +these wild gentlemen, and we particularly request that no measures may be +adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which +we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You might as well give +us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat.” +This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and +the barons preserved their dive stock. + + “Read ‘Orange faction’ (says Captain Rock) here and you have the + wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, _in statu + quo_. The grand periodic year of the stoics, at the close of which + everything was to begin again, and the same events to be all reacted + in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represented in the + history of the English Government in Ireland, every succeeding + century being but a new revolution of the same follies, the same + crimes, and the same turbulence that disgraced the former. But ‘Vive + l’ennemi!’ say I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, + at least, will prosper. + + “And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The + rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed, + as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which + the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The + M’Cartys, the O’Briens, and the other Macs and O’s, who have been + kept on the alert by similar causes ever since, flew to arms under + the command of a chieftain of my family; and, as the proffered + _handle_ of the sword had been rejected, made their inexorable + masters at least feel its _edge_.”—(_pp._ 23–25.) + +Fifty years afterwards the same request was renewed and refused. Up +again rose Mac and O, a _just and necessary war_ ensued; and after the +usual murders, the usual chains were replaced upon the Irishry. All +Irishmen were excluded from every species of office. It was high treason +to marry with the Irish blood, and highly penal to receive the Irish into +religious houses. War was waged also against their Thomas Moores, Samuel +Rogerses, and Walter Scotts, who went about the country harping and +singing against English oppression. No such turbulent guests were to be +received. The plan of making them poets-laureate, or converting them to +loyalty by pensions of £100 per annum, had not then been thought of. +They debarred the Irish even from the pleasure of running away, and fixed +them to the soil like negroes. + + “I have thus selected,” says the historian of Rock, “cursorily and at + random, a few features of the reigns preceding the Reformation, in + order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred + years in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and + by what a gentle course of alternatives they were prepared for the + inoculation of a new religion, which was now about to be attempted + upon them by the same skilful and friendly hands. + + “Henry VII. appears to have been the first monarch to whom it + occurred, that matters were not managed exactly as they ought in this + part of his dominions; and we find him—with a simplicity which is + still fresh and youthful among our rulers—expressing his _surprise_ + that his subjects of this land should be so prone to faction and + rebellion, and that so little advantage had been hitherto derived + from the acquisitions of his predecessor, notwithstanding the + fruitfulness and natural advantages of Ireland. Surprising, indeed, + that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have + converted the whole country into a perfect Atlantis of + happiness—should not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir + Thomas More, where ‘_tota insula velut una familia est_!’—most + stubborn, truly, and ungrateful, must that people be, upon whom, up + to the very hour in which I write, such a long and unvarying course + of penal laws, confiscations, and Insurrection Acts has been tried, + without making them in the least degree in love with their rulers. + + “Heloise tells her tutor, Abelard, that the correction which he + inflicted upon her only served to increase the ardour of her + affection for him; but bayonets and hemp are no such ‘_amoris + stimuli_.’ One more characteristic anecdote of those times and I + have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII., + when that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great + O’Neal and other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricard of + Connaught, most important to the English Government, Lord + Gormanstown, after the battle, in the first insolence of success, + said, turning to the Earl of Kildare, ‘We have now slaughtered our + enemies, but, to complete the good deed, we must proceed yet further, + and—cut the throats of those Irish of our own party!’ Who can wonder + that the Rock family were active in those times?”—(pp. 33, 35.) + +Henry VIII. persisted in all these outrages, and aggravated them by +insulting the prejudices of the people. England is almost the only +country in the world (even at present) where there is not some favourite +religious sport, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty +nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in +defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish +as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of +which the satellites of that corpulent tyrant turned out into the street, +pillaged the sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy nonsense +of the priests to the winds, and burnt the real and venerable crosier of +St. Patrick, fresh from the silversmith’s shop, and formed of the most +costly materials. Modern princes change the uniform of regiments; Henry +changed the religion of kingdoms, and was determined that the belief of +the Irish should undergo a radical and Protestant conversion. With what +success this attempt was made, the present state of Ireland is sufficient +evidence. + +“Be not dismayed,” said Elizabeth, on hearing that O’Neal meditated some +designs against her government; “tell my friends, if he arise, it will +turn to their advantage—_there will be estates for those who want_.” +Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the +sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed +among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered +the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had +selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, +three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced principally by the +absurd measures of this princess for the reformation of its religion. +The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their +cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any +means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M’Mahon, +the imprisonment of O’Toole and O’Dogherty, and the kidnapping of +O’Donnel—all truly Anglo-Hibernian proceedings. The execution of the +laws was rendered detestable and intolerable by the queen’s officers of +justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, besides innumerable +smaller insurrections gave rise to the great wars of Desmond and Hugh +O’Neal; which, after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfited +the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and embarrassed the +operations of Elizabeth, were terminated by the destruction of these two +ancient families, and by the confiscation of more than half the +territorial surface of the island. The last two years of O’Neal’s wars +cost Elizabeth £140,000 per annum, though the whole revenue of England at +that period fell considerably short of £500,000. Essex, after the +destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of above 20,000 men, +which was totally baffled and destroyed by Tyrone, within two years of +their landing. Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centuries +before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate +the Lugan Earl—Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each +other. In the course of a few months 3,000 men were starved to death in +Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders, +saw three children feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were +the golden days of good Queen Bess! + +By the rebellions of Dogherty, in the reign of James I., six northern +counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same +manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his +confiscations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Leland means +plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth of the whole kingdom +according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most +shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon +the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have +effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to +gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. The Irish, +during the reign of James I., suffered under the _double_ evils of a +licentious soldiery and a religious persecution. + +Charles I. took a bribe of £120,000 from his Irish subjects, to grant +them what in those days were called _Graces_, but in these days would be +denominated the Elements of Justice. The money was paid, but the graces +were never granted. One of these graces was curious enough: “That the +clergy were not to be permitted to keep henceforward any private prisons +of their own, but delinquents were to be committed to the public jails.” +The idea of a rector, with his own private jail full of Dissenters, is +the most ludicrous piece of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the +beginning of Charles’s reign were supported by the weekly fines levied +upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The +Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to +disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin—which object he effected after +a considerable skirmish with the priests. “The favourite object” (says +Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) +“of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was _the utter +extermination_ of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.” The great +rebellion took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of blood +and cruelty and confiscation. + +Cromwell began his career in Ireland by massacring for five days the +garrison of Drogheda, to whom quarter had been promised. Two millions +and a half of acres were confiscated. Whole towns were put up in lots, +and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of the kingdom, +and confined to Connaught. After a certain day, every Catholic found out +of Connaught was to be punished with death. Fleetwood complains +peevishly “that the people _do not transport readily_,” but adds, “_it is +doubtless a work in which the Lord will appear_.” Ten thousand Irish +were sent as recruits to the Spanish army. + + “Such was _Cromwell’s_ way of settling the affairs of Ireland; and if + a nation _is_ to be ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as any. + It is, at least, more humane than the slow, lingering process of + exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are + worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of + despatch which Molière attributes to one of his physicians is no + ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell:—“C’est un homme + expéditif, qui aime à depêcher ses malades; et quand on à mourir, + cela se fait avec lui le plus vite du monde.” A certain military + Duke, who complains that Ireland is but half conquered, would, no + doubt, upon an emergency, try his hand in the same line of practice, + and, like that ‘stern hero’ Mirmillo, in the Dispensary, + + “While others meanly take whole months to slay, + Despatch the grateful patient in a day!” + + “Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at this period, + the price of five pounds was set on the head of a Romish priest, + being exactly the same sum offered by the same legislators for the + head of a wolf. The Athenians, we are told, encouraged the + destruction of wolves by a similar reward (five drachms); but it does + not appear that these heathens bought up the heads of priests at the + same rate, such zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for + times of Christianity and Protestantism.”—(pp. 97–99.) + +Nothing can show more strongly the light in which the Irish were held by +Cromwell than the correspondence with Henry Cromwell respecting the +peopling of Jamaica from Ireland. Secretary Thurloe sends to Henry, the +Lord Deputy in Ireland, to inform him that “a stock of Irish girls and +Irish young men are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica.” The answer of +Henry Cromwell is as follows:—“Concerning the supply of young men, +although we must use force in taking them up, _yet it being so much for +their own good_, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it +is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as +you may think fit to make use of on this account. + +“I shall not need repeat anything respecting the girls, not doubting to +answer your expectations to the full _in that_; and I think it might be +of like advantage to your affairs there and ours here if you should think +fit to send 1,500 or 2,000 boys to the place above mentioned. _We can +well spare them_; and who knows but that it may be the means of making +them Englishmen—I mean, rather, Christians? As for the girls, I suppose +you will make provisions of clothes, and other accommodations for them.” +Upon this, Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that the council have voted +4,000 _girls_, _and as many boys_, to go to Jamaica. + +Every Catholic priest found in Ireland was hanged, and five pounds paid +to the informer. + +“About the years 1652 and 1653,” says Colonel Lawrence, in his _Interests +of Ireland_, “the plague and famine had so swept away whole counties, +that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living +creature, either man, or beast, or bird, they being all dead, or had +quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the +places where they saw smoke—it was so rare to see either smoke by day or +fire or candle by night.” In this manner did the Irish live and die +under Cromwell, suffering by the sword, famine, pestilence, and +persecution, beholding the confiscation of a kingdom and the banishment +of a race. “So that there perished,” says Sir W. Petty, “in the year +1641, 650,000 human beings, whose bloods somebody must atone for to God +and the King!” + +In the reign of Charles II., by the Act of Settlement, four millions and +a half of acres were for ever taken from the Irish. “This country,” says +the Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant in 1675, “has been perpetually rent +and torn since his Majesty’s restoration. I can compare it to nothing +better than the flinging the reward on the death of a deer among the pack +of hounds, where every one pulls and tears where he can for himself.” +All wool grown in Ireland was, by Act of Parliament, compelled to be sold +to England; and Irish cattle were excluded from England. The English, +however, were pleased to accept 30,000 head of cattle, sent as a gift +from Ireland to the sufferers in the great fire! and the first day of the +Sessions, after this act of munificence, the Parliament passed fresh acts +of exclusion against the productions of that country. + +“Among the many anomalous situations in which the Irish have been placed, +by those ‘marriage vows, false as dicers’ oaths,’ which bind their +country to England, the dilemma in which they found themselves at the +Revolution was not the less perplexing or cruel. If they were loyal to +the King _de jure_, they were hanged by the King _de facto_; and if they +escaped with life from the King _de facto_, it was but to be plundered +and proscribed by the King _de jure_ afterwards. + + “‘Hac _gener_ atque _socer_ coeant mercede suorum.’—VIRGIL. + + “‘In a manner so summary, prompt, and high mettled, + Twixt father and son-in-law matters were settled.’ + +“In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland were for treason committed +the very day on which the Prince and Princess of Orange accepted the +crown in the Banqueting-house; though the news of this event could not +possibly have reached the other side of the Channel on the same day, and +the Lord-Lieutenant of King James, with an army to enforce obedience, was +at that time in actual possession of the government, so little was common +sense consulted, or the mere decency of forms observed, by that rapacious +spirit, which nothing less than the confiscation of the whole island +could satisfy; and which having, in the reign of James I. and at the +Restoration, despoiled the natives of no less than ten millions six +hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven acres, now +added to its plunder one million sixty thousand seven hundred and +ninety-two acres more, being the amount altogether (according to Lord +Clare’s calculation) of the whole superficial contents of the island! + + “Thus, not only had _all_ Ireland suffered confiscation in the course + of this century, but no inconsiderable portion of it had been twice + and even thrice confiscated. Well might Lord Clare say, ‘that the + situation of the Irish nation, at the Revolution, stands unparalleled + in the history of the inhabited world.’” (pp. 111–113.) + +By the Articles of Limerick, the Irish were promised the free exercise of +their religion; but from that period to the year 1788, every year +produced some fresh penalty against that religion, some liberty was +abridged, some right impaired, or some suffering increased. By acts in +King William’s reign, they were prevented from being solicitors. No +Catholic was allowed to marry a Protestant; and any Catholic who sent a +son to Catholic countries for education was to forfeit all his lands. In +the reign of Queen Anne, any son of a Catholic who chose to turn +Protestant got possession of the father’s estate. No Papist was allowed +to purchase freehold property, or to take a lease for more than thirty +years. If a Protestant dies intestate, the estate is to go to the next +_Protestant_ heir, though all to the tenth generation should be Catholic. +In the same manner, if a Catholic dies intestate, his estate is to go to +the next Protestant. No Papist is to dwell in Limerick or Galway. No +Papist is to take an annuity for life. The widow of a Papist turning +Protestant to have a portion of the chattels of deceased in spite of any +will. Every Papist teaching schools to be presented as a regular Popish +convict. Prices of catching Catholic priests, from 50s. to £10, +according to rank. Papists are to answer all questions respecting other +Papists, or to be committed to jail for twelve months. No trust to be +undertaken for Papists. No Papist to be on Grand Juries. Some notion +may be formed of the spirit of those times, from an order of the House of +Commons, “that the Sergeant-at-Arms should take into custody all Papists +that should presume to come into _the gallery_!” (_Commons’ Journal_, +vol. iii., fol. 976.) During this reign the English Parliament +legislated as absolutely for Ireland as they do now for Rutlandshire, an +evil not to be complained of, if they had done it as justly. In the +reign of George I., the horses of Papists were seized for the militia, +and rode by Protestants; towards which the Catholics paid double, and +were compelled to find Protestant substitutes. They were prohibited from +voting at vestries, or being high or petty constables. An act of the +English Parliament in this reign opens as follows:—“Whereas attempts have +been lately made to shake off the subjection of Ireland to the Imperial +Crown of these realms, be it enacted,” etc. etc. In the reign of George +II. four-sixths of the population were cut off from the right of voting +at elections by the necessity under which they were placed of taking the +oath of supremacy. Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics are +exposed to all the penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed by privateers +during a war with a Catholic State are to be indemnified by a levy on the +Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood. All marriages between +Catholics and Protestants are annulled. All Popish priests celebrating +them are to be hanged. “This system” (says Arthur Young) “has no other +tendency than that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth +of the Catholics, and extinguishing their industry within it; and the +face of the country, every object which presents itself to travellers, +tells him how effectually this has been done.”—_Young’s Tour in Ireland_, +vol. ii., p. 48. + + * * * * * + +Such is the history of Ireland—for we are now at our own times; and the +only remaining question is, whether the system of improvement and +conciliation begun in the reign of George III. shall be pursued, and the +remaining incapacities of the Catholics removed, or all these concessions +be made insignificant by an adherence to that spirit of proscription +which they professed to abolish? Looking to the sense and reason of the +thing, and to the ordinary working of humanity and justice, when +assisted, as they are here, by self-interest and worldly policy, it might +seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to the facts and the +persons by which we are now surrounded, we are constrained to say that we +greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed till they are +removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them +opposed by such enlightened men as Mr. Peel—faintly assisted by men of +such admirable genius as Mr. Canning—when Royal Dukes consider it as a +compliment to the memory of their father to continue this miserable +system of bigotry and exclusion, when men act ignominiously and +contemptibly on this question, who do so on no other question, when +almost the only persons zealously opposed to this general baseness and +fatuity are a few Whigs and Reviewers, or here and there a virtuous poet +like Mr. Moore? We repeat again, that the measure never will be effected +but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and necessary wars, the +Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a great deal more +than they at present require or even contemplate. We regret most +severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy; +but in this way it is that human affairs are carried on! + +We are sorry we have nothing for which to praise Administration on the +subject of the Catholic question, but it is but justice to say, that they +have been very zealous and active in detecting fiscal abuses in Ireland, +in improving mercantile regulations, and in detecting Irish jobs. The +commission on which Mr. Wallace presided has been of the greatest +possible utility, and does infinite credit to the Government. The name +of Mr. Wallace in any commission has now become a pledge to the public +that there is a real intention to investigate and correct abuse. He +stands in the singular predicament of being equally trusted by the rulers +and the ruled. It is a new era in Government when such men are called +into action; and if there were not proclaimed and fatal limits to that +ministerial liberality, which, so far as it goes, we welcome without a +grudge and praise without a sneer, we might yet hope that, for the sake +of mere consistency, they might be led to falsify our forebodings. But +alas! there are motives more immediate, and therefore irresistible; and +the time is not yet come when it will be believed easier to govern +Ireland by the love of the many than by the power of the few, when the +paltry and dangerous machinery of bigoted faction and prostituted +patronage may be dispensed with, and the vessel of the State be propelled +by the natural current of popular interests and the breath of popular +applause. In the meantime, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing +our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author +alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial +concession and liberality, that of the revolution of 1782, when, also, +benefits were conferred which proved abortive because they were +incomplete, and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was +yet left to rankle. + + “And here,” says the gallant Captain Rock, “as the free confession of + weakness constitutes the chief charm and use of biography, I will + candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord which I now saw + breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my + youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I + owed to my name and family, that—shall I confess it—I even hailed + with pleasure the prospects of peace and freedom that seemed opening + around me; nay, was ready, in the boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to + sacrifice all my own personal interest in all future riots and + rebellions to the one bright, seducing object of my country’s liberty + and repose. + + “When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose + nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley, elevated above + them solely for their defence; who introduced the polish of the + courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served his country with + all that pure Platonic devotion which a true knight in the time of + chivalry proffered to his mistress; when I listened to the eloquence + of Grattan, the very music of freedom, her first fresh matin song, + after a long night of slavery, degradation, and sorrow; when I saw + the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his + country—wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and + embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which + the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them, + like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness!—when I + reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of + discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it + might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country which could produce + such men and achieve such a revolution, might yet—in spite of the + joint efforts of the Government and my family—take her rank in the + scale of nations, and be happy! + + “My father, however, who saw the momentary dazzle by which I was + affected, soon drew me out of this false light of hope in which I lay + basking, and set the truth before me in a way but too convincing and + ominous. ‘Be not deceived, boy,’ he would say, ‘by the fallacious + appearances before you. Eminently great and good as is the man to + whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, _our_ work, believe me, + will last longer than his. We have a power on our side that “will + not willingly let us die;” and, long after Grattan shall have + disappeared from earth like that arrow shot into the clouds by + Alcestes, effecting nothing, but leaving a long train of light behind + him, the family of the ROCKS will continue to flourish in all their + native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful care of the Legislature, + and fostered by that “nursing-mother of Liberty,” the Church.’” + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER PLYMLEY'S LETTERS*** + + +******* This file should be named 4063-0.txt or 4063-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/0/6/4063 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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