and communication, I am not able to come to an immediate resolution in favour of a change of the groundwork of our constitution: and in particular, that in the present state of the country, in the present state of our representation, in the present state of our rights and modes of electing, in the present state of the several prevalent interests, in the present state of the affairs and manners of this country, that the addition of an hundred knights of the shire, and hurrying election on election, will be things advantageous to liberty or good government. This is the present condition of my mind; . and this is my apology for not going as fast as others may choose to go in this business. I do not by any means reject the propositions much less do I condemn the gentlemen who, with equal good intentions, with much better abilities, and with infinitely greater personal weight and consideration than mine, are of opinion that this matter ought to be decided upon instantly.

I most heartily wish, that the deliberate sense of the kingdom on this great subject should be known. When it is known, it must be prevalent. It would be dreadful indeed, if there was any power in the nation capable of resisting its unanimous desire, or even the desire of any very great and decided majority of the people. The people may be deceived in their choice of an object. But I can scarcely conceive any choice they can make to be so very mischievous as the existence of any human force capable of resisting it. It will certainly be the daty of every man in the situation to which God has called him, to give his best opinion and advice upon the matter; it will not be his duty, let him think what he will, to use any violent or any fraudulent means of counteracting the general wish, or even of employing the legal and constructive organ of expressing the people's sense against the sense which they do actually entertain.

In order that the real sense of the people should be known upon so great an affair as this, it is of absolute necessity that timely notice should be given. That the matter should be prepared in open committees; from a choice into which no class or description of men is to be excluded-and the subsequent county meetings should be as full and as well attended as possible. Without these precautions the true sense of the people will ever be uncertain. Sure I am, that no precipitate resolution on a great change in the fundamental constitution of any country can over be called the real sense of the people.

I trust it will not be taken amiss, if, as an inhabitant and freeholder of this county, (one

indeed among the most inconsiderable,) I assert my right of dissenting (as I do dissent fully and directly) from any resolution whatsoever on the subject of an alteration in the representation and election of the kingdom at this time. By preserving this right, and exercising it with temper and moderation, I trust I cannot offend the noble proposer, for whom no man professes, or feels, more respect and regard than I do. A want of concurrence in every thing which can be proposed, will in no sort weaken the energy or distract the efforts of men of upright intentions, upon those points in which they are agreed. Assemblies that are met, and with a resolution to be all of a mind, are assemblies that can have no opinion at all of their own. The first proposer of any measure must be their master. I do not know that an amicable variety of sentiment, conducted with mutual good will, has any sort of resemblance to discord; or that it can give any advantage whatsoever to the enemies of our common cause. On the contrary, a forced and fictitious agreement (which every universal agreement must be) is not becoming the cause of freedom. If, however, any evil should arise from it, (which I confess I do not foresee,) I am happy that those who have brought forward new and arduous matter, when very great doubts, and some diversity of opinion must be foreknown, are of authority and weight enough to stand against the consequences.

I humbly lay these my sentiments before the county. They are not taken up to serve any interests of my own, or to be subservient to the interests of any man or set of men under heaven. I could wish to be able to attend our meeting, or that I had time to reason this matter more fully by letter; but I am detained here upon our business. What you have already put upon us is as much as we can do. If we are prevented from going through it with any effect, I fear it will be in part owing, not more to the resistance of the enemies of our cause, than to our imposing on ourselves such tasks as no human faculties, employed as we were, can be equal to. Our worthy members have shown distinguished ability and zeal in support of our petition. I am just going down to a bil! brought in to frustrate a capital part of your desires. The minister is preparing to transfer the cognizance of the public accounts from those whom you and the constitution have chosen to controul them, to unknown persons, creatures of his own. hilates parliament.

Charles-street, 12th April, 1780.

For so much he anni

I have the honour, &c. EDMUND BURKE.

FRAGMENTS OF A TRACT

ON THE

POPERY LAWS.

THE PLAN.

I PROPOSE first to make an introduction, in order to shew the propriety of a closer inspection into the affairs of Ireland; and this takes up the first chapter; which is to be spent in this introductory matter, and in stating the popery laws in general as one leading cause of the imbecility of the country.

Ch. II. states particularly the laws them selves, in a plain and popular manner.

Ch. III. begins the remarks upon them, under the heads of, 1st. The Object, which is a numerous people. 2dly. Their means, a restraint on property. 3dly. Their instruments of execution, corrupted morals; which affect the national prosperity.

Ch. IV. The impolicy of those laws as they affect the national security.

Ch. V. Reasons by which the laws are supported, and answers to them.

The condition of the Roman catholics in Ireland appears to have engaged the attention of Mr. Burke at a very early period of his political life. It was probably soon after the year 1765, that he formed the plan of a work upon that subject, the fragments of which are now given to the public. No title is prefixed to it in the ori ginal manuscript; and the Plan, which it has been thought proper to insert here, was evidently designed merely for the convenience of the author. Of the first chapter some unconnected fragments only, too imperfect for publication, have been found. Of the second, there is a considerable portion, perhaps nearly the whole; but the copy, from which it is printed, is evidently a first rough draught. The third chapter, as far as it goes, is taken from a fair corrected copy; but the end of the second part of the first head is left unfinished; and the discussion of the second and third heads was either never entered upon, or the manuscript contain.

CHAPER II.

In order to lay this matter with full satisfaction before the reader, I shall collect into one point of view, and state, as shortly and as clearly as I am able, the purport of these laws, according to the objects which they affect, without making at present any further observation upon them but just what shall be necessary to render the drift and intention of the legislature, and the tendency and operation of the laws, the more distinct and evident.

I shall begin with those which relate to the possession and inheritance of landed property in popish hands. The first operation of those acts upon this object was, wholly to change the course of descent by the common law; to take away the right of primogeniture; and, in lieu thereof, to substitute and establish a new species of statute gavelkind. By this law, on the death of a papist possessed of an estate in fee simple or in fee tail, the land is to be divided by equal portions between all the male children; and those portions are likewise to be parcelled out, share and share alike, among the descendants of each son, and so to proceed

ing it has unfortunately been lost. What follows the third chapter appears to have been designed for the beginning of the fourth, and is` evidently the first rough draught; and to this we have added a fragment, which appears to have been a part either of this or the first chapter.

In the volume with which it is intended to close this posthumous publication of Mr. Burke's Works, we shall have occasion to enter into a more particular account of the part which he took in the discussion of this great political question. At present it may suffice to say, that the letter to Mr. Smith, the second letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, and the letter to his son, which here follow in order the fragment on the popery laws, are the only writings upon this subject found among his papers a state fit to appear in this stage of the pubication.

What remain are some small fragments of the tract, and a few letters containing no new matter of importance.

in a similar distribution ad infinitum. From this regulation, it was proposed that some important consequences should follow; First, By taking away the right of primogeniture, perhaps in the very first generation, certainly in the second, the families of papists, however respectable, and their fortunes however considerable, would be wholly dissipated, and reduced to obscurity and indigence, without any possibility that they should repair them by their mdustry or abilities; being, as we shall see anon, disabled from every species of permanent acquisition. Secondly, By this law, the right of testamentation is taken away, which the inferiour tenures had always enjoyed; and all tenures from the 27th Hen. 8th. Thirdly, The right of settlement was taken away, that no such persons should, from the moment the act passed, be enabled to advance themselves in fortune or connection by marriage, being disabled from making any disposition in consideration of such marriage, but what the law had previously regulated; the reputable establishment of the eldest son, as representative of the family, or to settle a jointure, being commonly the great object in such settlements, which was the very power which the law had absolutely taken away. The operation of this law, however certain, might be too slow. The present possessors might happen to be long lived. The legislature knew the natural impatience of expectants, and upon this principle they gave encouragement to the children to anticipate the inheritance. For it is provided, that the eldest son of any papist shall, iramediately on his conformity, change entirely the nature and properties of his father's legal estate; if he before held in fee simple, or in other words, had the entire and absolute dominion over the land, he is reduced to an estate for his life only, with all the consequences of the natural debility of that estate; by which he becomes disqualified to sell, mortgage, charge, (except for his life,) or in any wise to do any act by which he may raise money for relief in his most urgent necessities. The eldest son so conforming, immediately acquires, and in the lifetime of his father, the permanent part, what our law calls the reversion and inheritance of the estate, and he discharges it by retrospect; and annuls every sort of voluntary settlement made by the father ever so long bfore his conversion. This he may sell or dispose of immediately, and alienate it from the family for ever.

ifaving thus reduced his father's estate, he may also bring his father into the court of chancery, where he may compe! him to swear to VOL.11.-26

the value of his estate; and to allow him cut of that possession (which had been before reduced to an estate for life) such an immediate annual allowance as the lord chancellor or lord keeper shall judge suitable to his age and quality.

This indulgence is not confined to the eldest son. The other children likewise, by confor mity, may acquire the same privileges, and in the same manner force from their father an immediate and independent maintenance. It is very well worth remarking, that the statutes have avoided to fix any determinate age, for these emancipating conversions; so that the children, at any age, however incapable of choice in other respects, however immature or even infantine, are yet considered sufficiently capable to disinherit their parents, and totally to subtract themselves from their direction and controul, either at their own option, or by the instigation of others. By this law, the tenure and value of a Roman catholic, in his real property, is not only rendered extremely limited and altogether precarious; but the paternal power is in all such families so enervated, that it may well be considered as entirely taken away; even the principal upon which it is founded seems to be directly reversed. However, the legislature feared that enough was not yet done upon this head; the Roman catholic parent, by selling his real estate, might in some sort preserve the dominion over his substance and his family, and thereby evade the operation of these laws, which intended to take away both. Besides, frequent revolutions and many conversions had so broken the landed property of papists in that kingdom, that it was apprehended that this law could have in a short time but a few objects upon which it would be capable of operating.

To obviate these inconveniences, another law was made, by which the dominion of children over their parents was extended universally throughout the whole popish part of the nation, and every child of every popish parent was encouraged to come into what is called a Court of Equity, to prefer a bill against his father, and compel him to confess, upon oath, the quantity and value of his substance, personal as well as real, of what nature soever, or howsoever it might Lo caployed; upon which discovery the court is empowered to seize upon and allocate for the immediate maintenance of such child or children, any sum not exceeding a third of the whole fortune; and as to their future establishment on the death of the father, no limits are assigned; the chancery may, if it thinks fit, take the whole property, personal as S

well as real, money, stock in trade, &c. out of the power of the possessor, and secure it in any manner they judge expedient for that purpose; for the act has not assigned any sort of limit with regard to the quantity which is to be charged, or given any direction concerning the means of charging and securing it: a law which supersedes all observation.

But the law is still more extensive in its provision. Because there was a possibility that the parent, though sworn, might by false representations evade the discovery of the ultimate value of his estate, a new bill may be at any time brought, by one, any, or all of the children, for a further discovery; his effects are to undergo a fresh scrutiny, and a new distribution is to be made in consequence of it. So that the parent has no security against perpetual inquietude, and the reiteration of chancery suits, but by (what is somewhat difficult for human nature to comply with) fully, and without reserve, abandoning his whole property to the discretion of the court, to be disposed of in favour of such children.

But is this enough, and has the parent purchased his repose by such a surrender? Very far from it. The law expressly, and very carefully, provides that he shall not; before he can be secure from the persecution of his children, it requires another and a much more extraordinary condition; the children are authorized, if they can find that their parent has by his industry or otherwise increased the value of his property since their first bill, to bring another, compelling a new account of the value of his estate, in order to a new distribution proportioned to the value of the estate at the time of the new bill preferred. They may bring such bills, toties quoties, upon every im provement of his fortune, without any sort of limitation of time, or regard to the frequence of such bills, or to the quantity of the increase of the estate, which shall justify the bringing them. This act expressly provides, that he shall have no respite from the persecution of his children, but by totally abandoning all thoughts of improvement and acquisition.

This is going a great way, surely: but the laws in question have gone much further; not satisfied with calling upon. children to revolt against their parents, and to possess themselves of their substance, there are cases where the withdrawing of the child from his father's obedience is not left to the option of the child himself; for f the wife of a Roman catholic should choose to change her religion, from that moment she deprives her husband of all manage ment and direction of his children, and even

of all the tender satisfaction which a paren can feel in their society, and which is the only indemnification he can have for all his cares and sorrows; and they are to be torn for ever, at the earliest age, from his house and family; for the lord chancellor is not only authorized, but he is strongly required to take away all his children from such popish parent, to appoint where, in what manner, and by whom they are to be educated; and the father is compelled to pay, not for the ransom, but for the deprivation of his children; and to furnish such a sum as the chancellor thinks proper to appoint for their education, to the age of eighteen years. The case is the same if the husband shoulu be the conformist; though how the law is to operate in this case do not see. For the act expressly says, that the child shall be taken from such popish parent. And whilst such husband and wife cohabit, it will be impossible to put it into execution without taking the child from one as well as from the other and then the effect of the law will be, that if either husband or wife becomes protestant, both are to be deprived of their children.

The paternal power thus being wholly abrogated, it is evident that by the last regulation, the power of an husband over his wife is also considerably impaired; because if it be in her power, whenever she pleases, to subtract the children from his protection and obedience, she herself, by that hold, inevitably acquires a power and superiority over her husband.

But she is not left dependent upon this oblique influence; for if in any marriage settlement the husband has reserved to him a power of making a jointure, and he dies without settling any, her conformity executes his powers; and executes them in as large extent as the chancellor thinks fit. The husband is deprived of that coercive power over his wife which he had in his hands, by the use he might make of the discretionary power reserved in the settlement.

But if no such power had been reserved, and no such settlement existed, yet if the husband dies leaving his conforming wife without a fixed provision by some settlement on his real estate, his wife may apply to chancery, where she shall be allotted a portion from his leases and other personal estate, not ex ceeding one-third of his whole clear substance, The laws in this instance, as well as in tho former, have presumed that the husband has omitted to make all the provision which be might have done, for no other reason than that of her religion. If therefore she chooses to balance any domestic misdemeanors to her