myself. The bad faith of that State brings disgrace on all; just as common snakes are killed because vipers are dangerous. I have a general feeling, that by that breed of men I have been robbed and ruined, and I shudder and keep aloof. The pecuniary credit of every State is affected by Pennsylvania. Ohio pays; but with such a bold bankruptcy before their eyes, how long will Ohio pay? The truth is, that the eyes of all capitalists are averted from the United States. The finest commercial understandings will have nothing to do with them. Men rigidly just, who penetrate boldly into the dealings of nations, and work with vigour and virtue for honourable wealth-great and high-minded merchants-will loathe, and are now loathing, the name of America: it is becoming, since its fall, the common-shore of Europe, and the native home of the needy villain.

And now, drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania, there is yet a moment left: the eyes of all Europe are anchored upon you

"Surrexit mundus justis furiis :"

start up from that trance of dishonesty into which you are plunged; don't think of the flesh which walls about your life, but of that sin which has hurled you from the heaven of character, which hangs over you like a devouring pestilence, and makes good men sad, and ruffians dance and sing. It is not for Gin Sling and Sherry Cobler alone that man is to live, but for those great principles against which no argument can be listened to-principles which give to every power a double power above their functions and their offices, which are the books, the arts, the academies that teach, lift up, and nourish the world-principles (I am quite serious in what I say) above cash, superior to cotton, higher than currency-principles, without which it is better to die than to live which every servant of God, over every sea and in all lands, should cherish-usque ad abdita spiramenta animæ.

Yours, &c.

SYDNEY SMITH.

NOVEMBER 3, 1843.

LETTER II.

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle :

SIR: Having been unwell for some days past, I have had no opportunity of paying my respects to General Duff Green, who

360

A FABLE FROM PILPAY.

(whatever be his other merits) has certainly not shown himself a Washington in defence of his country. The General demands, with a beautiful simplicity, "Whence this morbid hatred of America?" But this question, all-affecting as it is, is stolen from Pilpay's fables. "A fox," says Pilpay, "caught by the leg in a trap near the farm-yard, uttered the most piercing cries of distress; forthwith all the birds of the yard gathered round him, and seemed to delight in his misfortune; hens chuckled, geese hissed, ducks quacked, and chanticleer with shrill cockadoodles rent the air. 'Whence,' said the fox, stepping forward with infinite gravity, 'whence this morbid hatred of the fox? What have I done? Whom have I injured? I am overwhelmed with astonishment at these symptoms of aversion.' 'Oh, you old villain,' the poultry exclaimed, 'Where are our ducklings? Where are our goslings? Did not I see you running away yesterday with my mother in your mouth? Did you not eat up all my relations last week? You ought to die the worst of deaths—to be pecked into a thousand pieces.'" Now hence, General Green, comes the morbid hatred of America, as you term it-because her conduct has been predatory—because she has ruined so many helpless children, so many miserable women, so many aged men—because she has disturbed the order of the world, and rifled those sacred treasures which human virtue had hoarded for human misery. Why is such hatred morbid? Why, is it not just, inevitable, innate? Why, is it not disgraceful to want it? Why, is it not honourable to feel it?

Hate America!!! I have loved and honoured America all my life; and in the Edinburgh Review, and at all opportunities which my trumpery sphere of action has afforded, I have never ceased to praise and defend the United States; and to every American to whom I have had the good fortune to be introduced, I have proffered all the hospitality in my power. But I cannot shut my eyes to enormous dishonesty; nor, remembering their former state, can I restrain myself from calling on them (though I copy Satan) to spring up from the gulf of infamy in which they are rolling

"Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen."

I am astonished that the honest States of America do not draw a cordon sanitaire round their unpaying brethren-that the truly

mercantile New-Yorkers, and the thoroughly honest people of Massachusetts, do not in their European visits wear a uniform with "S. S., or Solvent States," worked in gold letters upon the coat, and receipts in full of all demands tamboured on the waistcoats, and " our own property" figured on their pantaloons. But the General seems shocked that I should say the Americans cannot go to war without money: but what do I mean by war? Not irruptions into Canada-not the embodying of militia in Oregon; but a long, tedious, maritime war of four or five years' duration. Is any man so foolish as to suppose that Rothschild has nothing to do with such wars as these? And that a bankrupt State, without the power of borrowing a shilling in the world, may not be crippled in such a contest? We all know that the Americans can fight. Nobody doubts their courage. I see now in my mind's eye a whole army on the plains of Pennsylvania in battle array, immense corps of insolvent light infantry, regiments of heavy horse debtors, battalions of repudiators, brigades of bankrupts, with Vivre sans payer, ou mourir, on their banners, and are alieno on their trumpets: all these desperate debtors would fight to the death for their country, and probably drive into the sea their invading creditors. Of their courage, I repeat again, I have no doubt. I wish I had the same confidence in their wisdom. But I believe they will become intoxicated by the flattery of unprincipled orators; and, instead of entering with us into a noble competition in making calico (the great object for which the Anglo-Saxon race appears to have been created) they will waste their happiness and their money (if they can get any) in years of silly, bloody, foolish, and accursed war, to prove to the world that Perkins is a real fine gentleman, and that the carronades of the Washington steamer will carry farther than those of the Britisher Victoria, or the Robert Peel vessel-of-war.

I am accused of applying the epithet repudiation to States which have not repudiated. Perhaps so; but then these latter States have not paid. But what is the difference between a man who says, "I don't owe you anything, and will not pay you," and another who says, "I do owe you a sum," and who, having admitted the debt, never pays it? There seems in the first to be some slight colour of right; but the second is broad, blazing, refulgent, meridian fraud.

362

PENAL PLUMES.

It may be very true that rich and educated men in Pennsylvania wish to pay the debt, and that the real objectors are the Dutch and German agriculturists, who cannot be made to understand the effect of character upon clover. All this may be very true, but it is a domestic quarrel. Their church-wardens of reputation must make a private rate of infamy for themselves—we have nothing to do with this rate. The real quarrel is the Unpaid World versus the State of Pennsylvania.

And now, dear Jonathan, let me beg of you to follow the advice of a real friend, who will say to you what Wat Tyler had not the virtue to say, and what all speakers in the eleven recent Pennsylvanian elections have cautiously abstained from saying—“ Make a great effort; book up at once, and pay." You have no conception of the obloquy and contempt to which you are exposing yourselves all over Europe. Bull is naturally disposed to love you, but he loves nobody who does not pay him. His imaginary paradise is some planet of punctual payment, where ready money prevails, and where debt and discount are unknown. As for me, as soon as I hear that the last farthing is paid to the last creditor, I will appear on my knees at the bar of the Pennsylvanian Senate in the plumeopicean robe of American controversy. Each Conscript Jonathan shall trickle over me a few drops of tar, and help to decorate me with those penal plumes in which the vanquished reasoner of the transatlantic world does homage to the physical superiority of his opponents. And now, having eased my soul of its indignation, and sold my stock at 40 per cent. discount, I sulkily retire from the subject, with a fixed intention of lending no more money to free and enlightened republics, but of employing my money henceforth in buying up Abyssinian bonds, and purchasing into the Turkish Fours, or the Tunis Three-and-a-half per Cent. funds. SYDNEY SMITH.

NOVEMBER 22, 1843.

THE IRISH CHURCH.

363

A FRAGMENT ON

THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.*

THE revenue of the Irish Roman Catholic Church is made up of half-pence, potatoes, rags, bones, and fragments of old clothes,

This unrevised fragment was found among the papers of Sydney Smith after his death. It was first published in April, 1845, with the prefatory remark that, "if it serve no other purpose, will, at least, prove that his last, as well as his earliest efforts, were exerted for the promotion of religious freedom, and may satisfy those who have objected to his later writings, because his own interest appeared to be bound up with his opinions, that he did not hesitate to the last moment of his life, boldly to advocate what he considered to be justice to others." The manuscript was accompanied by the following Private Memoranda of Subjects intended to have been introduced in the Pamphlet, &c. The subjects marked by a star are treated of in the Fragment.

Debates in the House of Commons in 1825, on the motion of Lord F. Egerton, for the support of the Roman Catholic clergy. Printed separately, I believe, in Ireland.

Evidence before the House of Commons, in 1824 and 1825, including Doyle's.

A Speech of Charles Grant's, in 1819, on a motion of James Daly to enforce the Insurrection Act.

Debates on Maynooth, in February last (1844).

Hard case of the priest's first year.

Provision offered by Pitt and Castlereagh, and accepted by the hierarchy.

* Send ambassadors to Constantinople, and refuse to send them to Rome. England should cast off its connection with the Irish Church.

Lord F. Egerton's plan for paying the Roman Catholic clergy in 1825. The prelates agree to take the money.

* Old mode of governing by Protestants at an end.

* Vast improvements since the Union, and fully specified in Martin, page 35. * Priests dare not thwart the people, for fear of losing money.

* Dreadful oppression of the people.

* Bishops dare not enforce their rules. They must have money.