every state is to render its subjects justly disContented; nor is there in politics or science any more effectual secret for their security, than to establish in their people a firm opinion that no change can be for their advantage. It is true that bigotry and fanaticism may for a time draw great multitudes of people from a knowledge of their true and substantial interest. But upon this I have to remark three things; first, that such a temper can never become universal, or last for a long time. The principle of religion is seldom lasting; the majority of men are in no persuasion bigots; they are not willing to sacrifice, on every vain imagination that superstition or enthusiasm holds forth, or that even zeal and piety recommend, the certain possession of their temporal happiness. And if such a spirit has been at any time roused in a society, after it has had its paroxysm, it commonly subsides and is quiet, and is even the weaker for the violence of its first exertion; security and ease are its mortal enemics. But, secondly, if any thing can tend to revive and keep it up, it is to keep alive the passions of men by ill usage. This is enough to irritate even those who have not a spark of bigotry in their constitution to the most desperate enterprises; it certainly will inflame, darken, and render more dangerous the spirit of bigotry in those who are posseseed by it. Lastly, By rooting out any sect, you are never secure against the effects of fanaticism; it may arise on the side of the most favoured opinions; and many are the instances wherein the established religion of a state has grown ferocious, and turned upon its keeper, and has often torn to pieces the civil establishment that had cherished it, and which it was designed to support; France-England-Holland.

But there may be danger of wishing a change, even where no religious motive can operate; and every enemy to such a state comes as a friend to the subject; and where other countries are under terrour, they begin to hope.

This argument ad verecundiam has as much force as any such have. But I think it fares but very indifferently with those who make use of it, for they would get but little to be proved abettors of tyranny, at the expence of putting me to an inconvenient acknowledgement. For if I were to confess that there are any circumstances in which it would be better to establish such a religion

In the second year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were enacted also several limitations in the acquisition, or the retaining of property, which had, so far as regarded any general principles, hitherto remained untouched under all changes.

These bills met no opposition either in the Irish parliament or in the English council, except from private agents, who were little attended to; and they passed into laws with the highest and most general applauses, as all such things are in the beginning, not as a system of persecution, but as master-pieces of the most subtle and refined politics. And, to say the truth, these laws at first view have rather an appearance of a plan of vexatious litigation and crooked law-chicanery, then of a direct and sanguinary attack upon the rights of private conscience; because they did not affect life, at least with regard to the laity; and making the catholic opinions rather the subject of civil regulations than of criminal prosecu tions, to those who are not lawyers, and read these laws, they only appear to be a species of jargon. For the execution of criminal law has always a certain appearance of violence. Being exercised directly on the persons of the supposed offenders, and commonly executed in the face of the public, such executions are apt to excite sentiments of pity for the suf ferers, and indignation against those who are employed in such cruelties; being seen as single acts of cruelty, rather than as ill general principles of government: but the operation of the laws in question being such as common feeling brings home to every man's bosom, they operate in a sort of comparative silence and obscurity; and though their cruelty is exceedingly great, it is never seen in a single exertion, and always escapes commiseration, being scarce known, except to those who view them in a general, which is always a cold and phlegmatic light. The first of these laws being made with so general a satisfaction, as the chief governours found that such things were extremely acceptable to the leading people in that country, they were willing enough to gratify them with the ruin of their fellow

citizens; they were not sorry to divert their attention from other inquiries, and to keep them fixed to this, as if this had been the only real object of their national politics; and for many years there was no speech from the throne, which did not, with great appearance of seriousness, recommend the passing of such laws; and scarce a session went over without in effect passing some of them; until they have by degrees grown to be the most considerable head in the Irish statute book. At the same time, giving a temporary and occasional mitigation to the severity of some

At

of the harshest of those laws, they appeared in some sort the protectors of those, whom they were in reality destroying by the establishment of general constitutions against them. length, however, the policy of this expedient is worn out; the passions of men are cooled; those laws begin to disclose themselves, and to produce effects very different from those which were promised in making them; for crooked counsels are ever unwise; and nothing can be more absurd and dangerous than to tamper with the natural foundations of society, in hopes of keeping it up by certain contrivances.

MY DEAR SIR,

YOUR letter is, to myself, infinitely obliging; with regard to you, I can find no fault with it, except that of a tone of humility and disqualification, which neither your rank, nor the place you are in, nor the profession you belong to, nor your very extraordinary learning and talents will, in propriety, demand, or perhaps admit. These dispositions will be still less proper, If you should feel them in the extent your modesty leads you to express them. You have certainly given by far too strong a proof of self-diffidence, by asking the opinion of a man circumstanced as I am, on the important subject of your letter. You are far more capable of forming just conceptions upon it than I can be. However, since you are pleased to command me to lay before you my thoughts, as materials upon which your better judgment may operate, I shall obey you: and submit them, with great deference, to your nelioration or rejection.

But first permit me to put myself in the right. I owe you an answer to your former letter. It did not desire one; but it deserved it. If not for an answer, it called for an acknowledgment. It was a new favour; and indeed I should be worse than insensible, if I did not consider the honours you have heaped upon me, with no sparing hand, with becom

* Then a member of the Irish parliament; now one of the barons of the court of exchequer in Ireland.

ing gratitude. But your letter arrived to me at a time, when the closing of my long and last business in life, a business extremely complex, and full of difficulties and vexations of all sorts, occupied me in a manner which those who have not seen the interiour as well as exteriour of it, cannot easily imagine. I confess that in the crisis of that rude conflict I neglected many things that well deserved my best attention: none that deserved it bet ter, or have caused me more regret in the neglect, than your letter. The instant that business was over, and the house had passed its judgment on the conduct of the managers, I lost no time to execute what for years I had resolved on: it was to quit my public station, and to seek that tranquillity in my very advanced age, to which, after a very tempes tuous life, I thought myself entitled. But God has thought fit (and I unfeigned'y acknowledge his justice) to dispose of things otherwise. So heavy a calamity has fallen upon me, as to disable me for busine., and to disqualify me for repose. The e; stence I have, I do not know that I can call life. Accordingly I do not meddle with any one measure of government, though, for what reasons I know not, you seem to suppose me deeply in the secret of affairs. I only know, so far as your side of the water is concerned, that your present excellent lord lieutenant (the best man in every relation, that I have ever been acquainted with) has perfectly pure

Intentions with regard to Ireland; and of course, that he wishes cordially well to those, who form the great mass of its inhabitants; and who, as they are well or ill managed, must form an important part of its strength or weakness. If, with regard to that great object, he has carried over any ready-made system, I assure you it is perfectly unknown to me: I am very much retired from the world, and live in much ignorance. This, I hope, will form my humble apology, if I should err in the notions I entertaiu of the question which is soon to become the subject of your deliberations. At the same time accept it as an apology for my neglects.

I

You need inake no apology for your attachment the religious description you belong to. " proves (as in you it is sincere) your attachment to the great points in which the leading divisions are agreed, when the lesser, in which they differ, are so dear to you. shall never call ny religious opinions, which appear important to serious and pious minds, things of no consideration. Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference, which is, at least, half infidelity. As long as men hold charity and justice to be essential integral parts of religion, there can be little danger from a strong attachment to particular tenets in faith. This I am perfectly sure is your case; but I am not equally sure, that either teal for the tenets of faith, or the smallest degree of charity or justice, have much influenced the gentlemen who, under pretexts of zeal, have resisted the enfranchisement of their country. My dear son, who was a person of discernment, as well as clear and acute in his expressions, said in a letter of his, which I have seen, "that in order to grace their cause and to draw some respect to their persons, they pretend to be bigots." But here I take it we have not much to do with the theological tenets, on the one side of the question or the other. The poin itself is practically decided, That religion is owned by the state. Except in a settled maintenance, it is protected. A great deal of the rubbish, which as a nuisance long obstructed the way, is removed. One impediment remained longer, as a matter to justify the procription of the body of our country, after the rest had been abandoned as untenable ground. But the business of the pope (that mixed person of politics and religion) has long ceased to be a bugbear: for sore time past he has ceased to be even a colourable pretext. This was well known, when the catholics of these kingdoms for m amusement, were obliged on oath to b

him in his political capacity; which implied an allowance for them to recognize him in some sort of ecclesiastical superiority. It was a compromise of the old dispute.

For my part, I confess, I wish that we had been less eager in this point. I don't think indeed that much mischief will happen from it, if things are otherwise properly managed. Too nice an inquisition ought not to be made into opinions that are dying away of themselves. Had we lived an hundred and fifty years ago, I should have been as earnest and anxious as any body for this sort of abjuration: but living at the time in which I live, and obliged to speculate forward instead of backward, I must fairly say, I could well endure the existence of every sort of collateral aid, which opinion might, in the now state of things, afford to authority. I must see much more danger than in my life I have seen, or than others will venture seriously to affirm that they see, in the pope aforesaid, (though a foreign power, and with his long tail of etceteras,) before I should be active in weakening any hold, which government might think it prudent to resort to, in the management of that large part of the king's subjects. I do not choose to direct all my precautions to the part where the danger does not press; and to leave myself open and unguarded, where I am not only really, but visibly attacked.

My whole politics, at present, centre in one point; and to this the merit or demerit of every measure (with me) is referable; that is, what will most promote or depress the cause of jacobinism. What is jacobinism? It is an attempt (hitherto but too successful) to eradicate prejudice out of the minds of men, for the purpose of putting all power and authority into the hands of the persons capable of occasionally enlightening the minds of the people. For this purpose the jacobins have resolved to destroy the whole frame and fabric of the old societies of the world, and to regenerate them after their fashion. To obtain an army for this purpose, they every where engage the poor, by hoking out to them as a bribe the spoils of the rich. This I take to be a fair description of the principles and leading maxims of the enlightened of our day, who are commonly called jacobius.

As the grand prejudice, and that which holds all the other prejudices together, the first, last, and middle object of their hostility is religion. With that they are at inexpiable war. Thes make no distinction of sects. A Chris* an as such. Is to them an enemy. What then it left to a real Christian, (Christian as

a believer and as a statesman,) but to make a league between all the grand divisions of that name; to protect and to cherish them all; and by no means to proscribe in any manner, more or less, any member of our common party? The divisions which formerly prevailed in the church, with all their overdone zeal, only purified and ventilated our common faith; because there was no common enemy arrayed and embattled to take advantage of their dissensions: but now nothing but inevitable ruin will be the consequence of our quarrels. I think we may dispute, rail, persecute and provoke the catholics out of their prejudices; but it is not in ours they will take refuge. If any thing is, one more than another, out of the power of man, it is to create a prejudice. Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman, but he cannot make a gentleman.

All the principal religions in Europe stand upon one common bottom. The support that the whole, or the favoured parts, may have, in the secret dispensations of Providence, it is impossible to tell; but, humanly speaking, they are all prescriptive religions. They have all stood long enough to make prescription, and its chain of legitimate prejudices, their main stay. The people, who compose the four grand divisions of Christianity, have now their religion as an habit, and upon authority, and not on disputation; as all men, who have their religion derived from their parents, and the fruits of education, must have it; however, the one, more than the other, may be able to reconcile his faith to his own reason, or to that of other men. Depend upon it, they must all be supported, or they must all fall in the crash of a common ruin. The catholics are the far more numerous part of the Christians in your country; and how can Christianity (that is now the point in issue) be supported, under the persecution, or even under the discountenance, of the greater number of Christians? It is a great truth, and which in one of the debates, I stated as strongly as I could to the house of commons in the last session, that if the catholic religion is destroyed by the infidels, it is a most contemptible and absurd idea, that this, or any protestant church, can survive that event. Therefore, my humble and decided opinion is, that all the three religions, prevalent more or less in various parts of these islands, ought all, in subordination to the legal establishments, as they stand in the several countries, to be all countenanced, protected and cherished; and that in Ireland particularly, the Roman catholic religion should be

upheld in high respect and veneration; and should be, in its place, provided with all the means of making it a blessing to the people who profess it. That it ought to be cherished as a good, (though not as the most preferable good, if a choice was now to be made,) and not tolerated as an inevitable evil. If this be my opinion as to the catholic religion, as a sect, you must see, that I must be to the last degree averse to put a man, upon that account, upon a bad footing, with relation to the privileges which the fundemental laws of this country give him as a subject. I am the more serious on the positive encouragement to be given to this religion, (always, however, as secondary,) because the serious and earnest belief and practice of it by its professors forms, as things stand, the most effectual barrier, if not the sole barrier, against jacobinism. The catholics form the great body of the lower ranks of your community; and no small part of those classes of the middling that come nearest to them. You know, that the seduction of that part of mankind from the principles of religion, morality, subordination, and social order, is the great object of the Jacobins. Let them grow lax, sceptical, careless, and indifferent with regard to religion, and so sure as we have an existence, it is not a zealous Anglican or Scottish church principle, but direct jacobinism which will enter into that breach. Two hundred years dreadfully spent in experiments to force that people to change the form of their religion, have proved fruitless. You have now your choice for full four-fifths of your people, of the catholic religion or jacobinism. If things appear to you to stand on this alternative, I think you will not be long in making your option.

You have made, as you naturally do, a very able analysis of powers; and have separated, as the things are separable, civil from political powers. You start too a question, whether the civil can be secured, without some share in the political. For my part, as abstract questions, I should find some difficulty in an attempt to resolve them. But as applied to the state of Ireland, to the form of our commonwealth, to the parties that divide us, and to the dispositions of the leading men in those parties, I cannot hesitate to lay before you my opinion, that whilst any kind of discouragements and disqualifications remain on the catholics, an handle will be made, by a factious power, utterly to defeat the benefits of any civil rights they may apparently possess. I need not go to very remote times for my examples. It was within the course of about a twelve