fillet of justice is torn off; and he who sits to judge | life; which no hope of favour can influence, which no after the law, smites contrary to the law. effort of power can control.

298

WORKS OF THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH.

The most obvious and important use of this perfect | the Gospel; it is the greatest attribute of God; it is justice is, that it makes nations safe: under common that centre round which human motives and passions circumstances, the institutions of justice seem to have turn: and justice sitting on high, sees genius and pow. little or no bearing upon the safety and security of a er, and wealth and birth, revolving round her throne; country, but in periods of real danger, when a nation, and teaches their paths, and marks out their orbits, surrounded by foreign enemies, contends not for the and warns all with a loud voice, and rules with a boundaries of empire, but for the very being and ex- strong arm, and carries order and discipline into a istence of empire, then it is that the advantages of world, which, but for her, would only be a wild waste just institutions are discovered. Every man feels that of passions. Look what we are, and what just laws he has a country, that he has something worth preserv. have done for us:-a land of piety and charity;-a Instances are remem- land of churches, hospitals, and altars;-a nation of ing, and worth contending for. bered where the weak prevailed over the strong; one good Samaritans; a people of universal compassion. man recalls to mind when a just and upright judge All lands, all seas, have heard we are brave. We have protected him from unlawful violence, gave him back just sheathed that sword which defended the world; his vineyard, rebuked his oppressor, restored him to we have just laid down that buckler which covered the his rights, published, condemned, and rectified the nations of the earth. God blesses the soil with fertiliwrong. This is what is called country. Equal rights ty; English looms labour for every climate. All the to unequal possessions, equal justice to the rich and waters of the globe are covered with English ships. poor; this is what men come out to fight for, and to We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane litdefend. Such a country has no legal injuries to re-erature, instructed by deep science; and every people, member, no legal murders to revenge, no legal robbery as they break their feudal chains, look to the founders to redress; it is strong in its justice; it is then that and fathers of freedom for examples which may anithe use and object of all this assemblage of gentlemen and arrangement of juries, and the deserved veneration in which we hold the character of English judges, are understood in all their bearings, and in their fullest effects: men die for such things-they cannot be sub-conscientiously call a liberal government) to the full dued by foreign force where such just practices prevail. The sword of ambition is shivered to pieces against such a bulwark. Nations fall where judges are unjust, because there is nothing which the multitude think worth defending; but nations do not fall which are treated as we are treated, but they rise as we have risen. and they shine as we have shone, and die as we have died, too much used to justice, and too much used to freedom, to care for that life which is not just and free. I call you all to witness if there is any exaggerated picture in this; the sword is just sheathed, the flag is just furled, the last sound of the trumpet has just died away. You all remember what a spectacle this country exhibited: one heart, one voice-one weaAnd why? Because this country pon, one purpose. is a country of the law; because the judge is a judge for the peasant as well as for the palace; because every man's happiness is guarded by fixed rules from tyranny and caprice. This town, this week, the business of the few next days, would explain to any enlightened European why other nations did fall in the storms of the world, and why we did not fall. The Christian patience you may witness, the impartiality of the judgment-seat, the disrespect of persons, the disregard of consequences. These attributes of justice do not end with arranging your conflicting rights, and mine; they give strength to the English name; they turn the animal courage of this people into moral and religious courage, and present to the lowest of mankind plain reasons and strong motives why they should resist aggression from without, and bend themselves a living rampart round the land of their birth.

There is another reason why every wise man is so scrupulously jealous of the charactor of English justice. It puts an end to civil dissension. What other countries obtain by bloody wars, is here obtained by the decisions of our own tribunals; unchristian passions are laid to rest by these tribunals; brothers are brothers again; the Gospel resumes its empire, and because all confide in the presiding magistrate, and because a few plain men are allowed to decide upon their own conscientious impression of facts, civil discord, years of convulsion, endless crimes are spared; the storm is laid, and those who came in clamouring for revenge, go back together in peace from the hall of judgment to the loom and the plough, to the senate and the church.

The whole tone and tenour of public morals are affected by the state of supreme justice; it extinguishes revenge, it communicates a spirit of purity and uprightness to inferior magistrates; it makes the great good, by taking away impunity; it banishes fraud, obliquity, and solicitation, and teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is its handmaid, freedom its child, peace is its companion; safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train: it is the highest emanation of

mate, and rules which may guide. If ever a nation was happy-if ever a nation was visibly blessed by God-if ever a nation was honoured abroad, and left at home under a governmenment (which we can now career of talent, industry, and vigour, we are at this moment that people-and this is our happy lot.-First, the Gospel has done it, and then justice has done it; and he who thinks it his duty to labour that this hap py condition of existence may remain, must guard the rit of justice which exists in these times. First, he piety of these times, and he must watch over the spimust take care that the altars of God are not polluted, that the Christian faith is retained in purity and in perfection; and then turning to human affairs, let him strive for spotless, incorruptible justice; praising. honouring, and loving the just judge, and abhorring, as the worst enemy of mankind, him who is placed there to judge after the law, and who smites contrary to the law."

A LETTER TO THE ELECTORS UPON THE
CATHOLIC QUESTION.

WHY is not a Catholic to be believed on his oath? What says the law of the land to this extravagant piece of injustice? It is no challenge against a jury. man to say he is a Catholic; he sits in judgment upon your life and your property. Did any man ever hear it said that such or such a person was put to death, or that be lost his property, because a Catholic was among the jurymen? Is the question ever put? Does it ever enter into the mind of the attorney or the counsell a horse, or a house, or a field, does he ask if the sellor to inquire into the faith of the jury? If a man purchaser is a Catholic? Appeal to your own experi ence, and try by that fairest of all tests the justice of this enormous charge.

We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all I am sure these objections perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholic; did they live in a constant state of perjury? against the Catholics are often made by very serious and honest men, but I much doubt if Voltaire has advanced any thing against the Christian religion so hor rible, as to say that two-thirds of those who profess it fit to live in society who does not respect oaths? Bot are unfit for all the purposes of civil life; for who is it this imputation be true, what folly to agitate such questions as the civil emancipation of Catholics. If they are always ready to support falsehood by an ap peal to God, why are they suffered to breathe the air of England, or drink the waters of England? Why are they not driven into the howling wilderness? But now they possess, and bequeath, and witness, and de cide civil rights; and save life as physicians, and defend property as lawyers, and judge property as jury.

men; and you pass laws, enabling them to command all your fleets and armies, and then you turn round upon the very man you have made the master of the European seas, and the arbiter of nations, and tell him he is not to be believed on his oath.

oath of supremacy, which he is certain not one of them will take. If this is not calumny and injus tice, I know not what human conduct can deserve the name.

If you believe the oath of a Catholic, see what he will swear, and what he will not swear; read the oaths he already takes, and say whether, in common can. dour or in common sense, you can require more security than he offers you. Before the year 1793, the Catholic was subject to many more vexatious laws than he now is; in that year an act passed in his fa vour, but before the Catholic could exempt himself from his ancient pains and penalties, it was necessary to take an oath. This oath was, I believe, drawn up by Dr. Duigenan, the bitter and implacable enemy of the sect; and it is so important an oath, so little known and read in England, that I cannot, in spite of my wish to be brief, abstain from quoting it. I deny your right to call no Popery, till you are master of its contents.

I have lived a little in the world, but I never happened to hear a single Catholic even suspected of getting into office by violating his oath; the oath which they are accused of violating is an insuperable barrier to them all. Is there a more disgraceful spectacle in the world than that of the Duke of Norfolk hovering round the House of Lords in the execution of his office, which he cannot enter as a peer of the realm? disgraceful to the bigotry and injustice of his country, to his own sense of duty honourable in the extreme; he is the leader of a band of ancient and high-principled gentlemen, who submit patiently to obscurity and privation, rather than do violence to their conscience.In all the fury of party, I never heard the name of a single Catholic mentioned, who was suspected of having gained, or aimed at, any political advantage, by 'I do swear, that I do abjure, condemn, and deviolating his oath. I have never heard so bitter a test, as unchristian and impious, the principle, that slander supported by the slightest proof. Every man it is lawful to murder, destroy, or any ways injure, in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catho- any person whatsoever, for or under the pretext of lics, and lived with them probably as companions. If being a heretic; and I do declare solemnly, before this immoral lubricity were their characteristic, it God, that I believe no act, in itself unjust, immmoral, would surely be perceived in common life. Every or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by or un man's experience would corroborate the imputation; der pretence or colour, that it was done either for the but I can honestly say that some of the best and most good of the church, or in obedience to any ecclesiasexcellent men I have ever met with have been Catho- tical power whatsoever. I also declare that it is not lics; perfectly alive to the evil and inconvenience of an article of the Catholic faith, neither am I hereby their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the required to believe or profess, that the pope is infalli law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid perse- ble; or that I am bound to obey any order, in its own cution by falsehood and apostasy. But why (as has nature immoral, though the pope, or any ecclesiastibeen asked ten thousand times before) do you lay such cal power, should issue or direct such order; but, on a stress upou these oaths of exclusion, if the Catho- the contrary, I hold that it would be sinful in me to pay lies do not respect oaths? You compel me, a Catho- any respect or obedience thereto. I further declare, lic, to make a declaration against transubstantiation, that I do not believe that any sin whatsoever commit. for what purpose but to keep me out of Parliament?ted by me, can be forgiven at the mere will of any pope Why, then, I respect oaths and declarations, or else I or any priest, or of any persous whatsoever; but that should perjure myself, and get into Parliament; and sincere sorrow for past sins, a firm and sincere resoif I do not respect oaths, of what use is it to enact lution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, are them to keep me out? A farmer has some sheep, previous and indispensable requisites to establish a which he chooses to keep from a certain field, and to well-founded expectation of forgiveness; and that any effect this object, he builds a wall: there are two ob- person who receives absolution, without these previ jections to his proceeding; the first is, that it is for the ous requisites, so far from obtaining thereby any regood of the farm that the sheep should come into the mission of his sins, incurs the additional guilt of viofield; and so the wall is not only useless, but perni- lating a sacrament; and I do swear, that I will cious. The second is, that he himself thoroughly be- defend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement and lives at the time of building the wall, that all the arrangement of property in this country, as establishsheep are in the constant habit of leaping over such ed by the laws now in being.-I do hereby disclaim, walls. His first intention with respect to the sheep is disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert absurd, his means more absurd, and his error is perfect the present church establishment, for the purpose of in all its parts. He tries to do that which, if he suc- substituting a Catholic establishment in its stead; and ceeds will be very foolish, and tries to do it by means I do solemnly swear, that I will not exercise any which he himself, at the time of using them, admits privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to to be inadequate to the purpose; but I hope this ob- disturb and weaken the Protestant religion, and Projection to the oaths of Catholics is disappearing; I be- testant government in this kingdom. So help me lieve neither Lord Liverpool nor Mr. Peel, (a very God.' candid and honourable man), nor the archbishops (who are both gentlemen), nor Lord Eldon, nor Lord Stowell (whose Protestanism nobody calls in question), would make such a charge. It is confined to It appears from the evidence taken before the two provincial violence, and to the politicians of the second houses, and lately printed, that if Catholic emancipa. ible. I remember hearing the Catholics from the tion were carried, there would be little or no difficulty bustings of an election accused of disregarding oaths, in obtaining from the pope an agreement, that the and within an hour from that time, I saw five Catho- nomination of the Irish Catholic bishops should be lic voters rejected, because they would not take the made at home constitutionally by the Catholics, as it oath of supremacy; and these were not men of rank is now in fact, and in practice, and that the Irish who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen.-prelates would go a great way, in arranging a system The accusation was received with loud huzzas; the of general education, if the spirit of proselytism, poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence. No which now renders such a union impossible, were laid one praised the conscientious feelings of the constitu- aside. This great measure carried, the Irish Catho ents; no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate. lics would give up all their endowments abroad, if This is precisely the way in which the Catholics are treated; the very same man who encourages among bis partisans the doctrine that Catholics are not to be believed upon their oaths, directs his agents upon the hustings, to be very watchful that all Catholics should be prevented from voting, by tendering to them the

There is no law to prevent a Catholic from having the command of a British fleet or a British army.

This oath is taken by every Catholic in Ireland, and a similar oath, allowing for the difference of circumstances of the two countries, is taken in England.

they receive for them an equivalent at home; for now Irish priests are fast resorting to the continent for education, allured by the endowments which the French government are 'cunningly restoring and aug.

* The Catholic bishops since the death of the pretender, are fecommended either by the chapters or the parochial clergy, to the pope; and there is no instance of his devia

ting from their choice.

because some men, in distant ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages. They shall expiate the crimes committed, before they were born, in a land they never saw, by individuals they never heard of. I will charge them with every act of folly which they have never sanctioned and cannot control. I will sacrifice space, time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant Church. Now, in the midst of all this violence, consider, for a moment, how you are imposed upon by words, and what a serious violation of the rights of your fellow-creatures you are committing. Mr. Murphy lives in Limerick, and Mr. Murphy and his son are subjected to a thousand inconveniences and disadvantages because they are Catholics. Murphy is a wealthy, honourable, and excellent man; he ought to be in the corporation; he cannot get in because he is a Catholic. His son ought to be king's counsel for his talents, and his standing at the bar; he is prevented from reaching this dignity because he is a Catholic. Why, what reasons do you hear for all this? Because Queen Mary, three hundred years before the natal day of Mr. Murphy, murdered Protestants in Smithfield; because Louis XIV. dragooned his Protestant subjects, when the predecessor of Murphy's predecessor was not in being; because men are confined in prison at Madrid, twelve degrees more south than Murphy has ever been in his life; all ages, all climates, are ransacked to perpetuate the slavery of Murphy, the ill-fated victim of political anachronisms.

menting. The intercourse with the see of Rome | I will continue the incapacities of the men of this age, might and would, after Catholic emancipation, be so managed, that it should be open, upon grave occa sions, or, if thought proper, on every occasion, to the inspection of commissioners. There is no security compatible with the safety of their faith, which the Catholics are not willing to give. But what is Catholic emancipation as far as England is concerned? not an equal right to office with the member of the Church of England, but a participation in the same pains and penalties as those, to which the Protestant dissenter is subjected by the corporation and test acts. If the utility of these last mentioned laws is to be measured by the horror and perturbatiion their repeal would excíte, they are laws of the utmost importance to the defence of the English Church: but if it be of importance to the church that pains and penalties should be thus kept suspended over men's heads, then these bills are an effectual security against Catholics as well as Protestants; and the manacles so much confided in, are not taken off, but loosened, and the prayer of a Catholic is this: I cannot now become an alderman without perjury. I pray of you to improve my condition so far, that if I become an alderman I may be only exposed to a penalty of 5001. There are two common errors upon the subject of Catholic emancipation; the one, that the emancipated Catholic is to be put on a better footing than the Protestant dissenter, whereas he will be put precisely on the same footing; the other, that he is to be admitted to civil offices, without any guard, exception, or reserve; whereas, in the various bills which have been from time to time brought forward, the legal wit of man has been exhausted to provide against every surmise, suspicion, and whisper of the most remote danger to the Protestant church.

Suppose a barrister, in defending a prisoner, were to say to the judge, My Lord, I humbly submit to your lordship that the indictment against the prisoner cannot stand good in law; and as the safety of a tel low-creature is concerned, I request your lordship's patient attention to my objections. In the first place. The Catholic question is not an English question, the indictment does not pretend that the prisoner at but an Irish one; or rather, it is no otherwise an En- the bar is not himself guilty of the offence, but that glish question than as it is an Irish one. As for the some persons of the same religious sect as himself are handful of Catholics that are in England, no one, I so; in whose crime he cannot (I submit), by any pospresume, can be so extravagant as to contend, if they sibility, be implicated, as these criminal persons lived were the only Catholics we had to do with, that it three hundred years before the prisoner was born. In would be of the slightest possible consequence to what the next place, my lord, the venue of several crimes offices of the state they were admitted. It would be imputed to the prisoner is laid in countries to which quite as necessary to exclude the Sandemanians, who the jurisdiction of this country does not extend; in are sixteen in number, or to make a test act against France, Spain, and Italy, where also the prisoner has the followers of Joanna Southcote, who amount to one never been; and as to the argument used by my hundred and twenty persons. A little chalk on the learned brother, that it is only want of power and not wall and a profound ignorance of the subject, soon raise want of will, and that the prisoner would commit the a cry of no Popery; but I question if the danger of crime if he could; I humbly submit that the custom admitting five popish peers and two commoners to the of England has been to wait for the overt act before benefits of the constitution could raise a mob in any pain and penalty are inflicted, and that your lordship market town in England. Whatever good may accrue would pass a most doleful assize, if punishment de to England from the emancipation, or evil may befall pended upon evil volition; if men were subjected to this country for withholding emancipation, will reach | legal incapacities from the mere suspicion that they us only through the medium of Ireland. would do harm if they could; and if it were admitted to be sufficient proof of this suspicion, that men of this faith in distant ages, different countries, and under different circumstances, had planned evil, and when occasion offered, done it.'

When are mercy and justice, in fact, ever to return upon the earth, if the sins of the elders are to be for ever visited on these who are not even their children? Should the first act of liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war? Are the French never to forget the Sicilian vespers; or the Americans the long war waged against their liberties? Is any rule wise, which may set the Irish to recollect what they have suffered?

I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried on in Ireland; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, or Italy: the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic religion. You are not to consider what it was, but what it is; not what individuals profess, but what is generally practised. I constantly see, in advertisements from county meet. ings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off against the Catholics. The Inquisition exists in Spain and Portugal, therefore I confound place, and vote against the Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was purposed to be instituted. There have been many cruel persecutions of Protestants by The real danger is this-that you have four Irish Catholic governments; and therefore I will confound Catholics for one Irish Protestant. That is the mattime and place, and vote against the Irish, who live ter of fact, which none of us can help. Is it better pocenturies after these persecutions, and in a totally dif-licy to make friends, rather than enemies, of this imferent country. Doctor this, or Doctor that, of the Catholic Church, has written a very violent and absurd pamphlet; therefore I will confound persons, and vote against the whole Irish Catholic church, which has neither sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions.

While Mary was burning Protestants in England not a single Protestant was executed in Ireland; and yet the terrors of that reign are, at this moment, one of the most operative causes of the exclusion of Irish Catholics.

mense population? I allow there is danger to the Protestant Church, but much more danger, I am sure there is, in resisting, than admitting the claims of the Catholics. If I might indulge in visions of glory, and imagine myself an Irish dean or bishop, with an immense ecclesiastical income; if the justice or injustice of the case were entirely indifferent to me, and my only object were to live at ease in my possessions, there is no measure for which I should be so anxious as that of Catholic emancipation. The Catholics are now

ernment dare not at this moment remove a single regiment from Ireland. Abolish these absurd and disgraceful distinctions, and a few troops of horse to help the constables on fair days will be more than sufficient for the Catholic limb of the empire.

extremely angry and discontented at being shut out from so many offices and honours; the incapacities to which they are subjected thwart them in all their pursuits; they feel they are a degraded caste. The Protestant feels he is a privileged caste, and not only the Protestant gentleman feels this, but every Protestant Now for a very few of the shameful misrepresentaservant feels it, and takes care that his Catholic fel- tions circulated respecting the Irish Catholics, tor I low-servant shall perceive it. The difference between repeat again that we have nothing to do with Spanish the two religions is an eternal source of enmity, ill- or Italian, but with Irish Catholics; it is not true that will, and hatred, and the Catholic remains in a state the Irish Catholics refuse to circulate the Bible in Engof permanent disaffection to the government under lish; on the contrary, they have in Ireland circulated which he lives. I repeat that if I were a member of several editions of the Scriptures in English. In the the Irish church, I should be afraid of this position of last year, the Catholic prelates prepared and put forth affairs. I should fear it in peace, on account of riot a stereotype edition of the Bible, of a small print and and insurrection, and in war, on account of rebellion. low price, to insure its general circulation. They cirI should think that my greatest security consisted in culate the Bible with their own notes, and how, as removing all just cause of complaint from the Catholic Catholics, can they act otherwise? Are not our presociety, in endearing them to the English constitution, lates and Bartlett's buildings acting in the same manby making them feel, as soon as possible, that they ner? And must not all churches, if they are consistshared in its blessings. I should really think my ent, act in the same manner? The Bibles Catholics tithes and my glebe, upon such a plan, worth twenty quarrel with, are Protestant Bibles without notes, or years' purchase more than under the present system. Protestant Bibles with Protestant notes, and how can Suppose the Catholic layman were to think it an evil, they do otherwise without giving up their religion?— that his own church should be less splendidly endow. They deny, upon oath, that the infallibility of the pope ed than that of the Protestant Church, whose popula- is any necessary part of the Catholic faith. They, uption is so inferior; yet if he were free himself, and had on oath, declare that Catholic people are forbidden to nothing to complain of, he would not rush into rebel- worship images, and saints, and relics. They, upon lion and insurrection, merely to augment the income oath, a ure the temporal power of the pope, or his of his priest. At present you bind the laity and cler-right to absolve any Catholic from his oath. They gy in one common feeling of injustice; each feels for renounce, upon oath, all right to forfeit lands, and cov himself, and talks of the injuries of the other. The enant upon oath, not to destroy or plot against the obvious consequence of Catholic emancipation would Irish Protestant Church. What more can any man be to separate their interests. But another important want whom any thing will content? consequence of Catholic emancipation would be to improve the condition of the clergy. Their chapels would be put in order, their incomes increased, and we should soon hear nothing more of the Catholic Church. If this measure were carried in March, I believe by the January following, the whole question would be as completely forgotten as the sweating sickness, and that nine Doctor Doyles, at the rate of thirty years to a Doyle, would pass away one after the other, before any human being heard another syllable on the subject. All men gradually yield to the comforts of a good income. Give the Irish archbishop £1200 per annum; the bishop £800, the priest £200, the coadjutor £100, per annum, and the cathedral of Dublin is almost as safe as the cathedral of York. This is the real secret of putting an end to the Catholic question; there is no other; but, remember, I am speaking of provision for the Catholic clergy after emancipation, not before. There is not an Irish clergyman of the Church of Rome who would touch one penny of the public money before the laity were restored to civil rights,-and why not pay the Catholic clergy as well as the Presbyterian clergy? Ever since the year 1803, the Presbyterian clergy in the North of Ireland have been paid by the government, and the grant is annually brought forward in Parliament; and not only are the Presbyterians paid, but one or two other species of Protestant dissenters. The consequence has been loyalty and peace. This way of appeasing dissenters you may call expensive, but is there no expense in injustice? You have at this moment an army of 20,000 men in Ireland, horse, foot, and artillery, at an annual expense of a million and a half of money; about one third of this sum would be the expense of the allowance to the Catholic clergy; and this army is so necessary, that the gov.

I say almost, because I hate to overstate an argument, and it is impossible to deny that there is danger to a church to which seven millions contribute largely, and in which six millions disbelieve: my argument nierely is, that such a church would be more safe in proportion as it interfered less with the comforts and ease of its natural enemies, and rendered their position more desirable and agreeable. I firmly believe the Toleration Act to be quite as conducive to the security of the Church of England as it is to the dissenters. Perfect toleration and the abolition of every incapacity as a consequence of religious opinions, are not, what is commonly called, a receipt for innovation, but a receipt for the quiet and permanence of every estabish ment which has the real good sense to adopt it.

Some people talk as if they were quite teased and worried by the eternal clamours of the Catholics; but if you are eternally unjust, can you expect anything more than to be eternally vexed by the victims of your injustice? You want all the luxury of oppression without any of its inconvenience. I should think the Catholics very much to blame, if they ever ceased to importune the legislature for justice, so long as they could find one single member of Parliament who would advocate their cause.

The putting the matter to rest by an effort of the county of York, or by any decision of Parliament against them, is utterly hopeless. Every year increases the Catholic population, and the Catholic wealth, and the Catholic claims, till you are caught in one of those political attitudes to which all countries are occasionally exposed, in which you are utterly helpless, and must give way to their claims; and if you do it then, you will do it badly; you may call it an arrangement, but arrangements made at such times are much like the bargains between an highwayman and a traveller, a pistol on one side, and a purse on the other; the rapid scramble of armed violence, and the unqualified surrender of helpless timidity. If you think the thing must be done at some time or another, do it when you are calm and powerful, and when you need not do it.

There are a set of high-spirited men who are very much afraid of being afraid; who cannot brook the idea of doing any thing from fear, and whose conversation is full of fire and sword, when any apprehension of resistance is alluded to. I have a perfect confidence in the high and unyielding spirit, and in the military courage of the English; and I have no doubt but that many of the country gentlemen, who now call out no Popery, would fearlessly put themselves at the head of their embattled yeomanry, to control the Irish Catholics. My objection to such courage is, that it would certainly be exercised unjustly, and probably exercised in vain. I should deprecate any rising of the Catholics as the most grievous misfortune which could happen to the empire and to themselves. They had far better endure all they do endure, and a great deal worse, than try the experiment. But if they do try it, you may depend upon it, they will do it at their own time, and not at yours. They will not select a fortnight in the summer, during a profound peace, when corn and money abound, and when the Catholics of Europe are unconcerned spectators. If you make a resolution to be unjust, you must make another resolution to be