SECOND LETTER

ΤΟ

SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE.

MY DEAR SIR,

IF I am not as early as I ought to be in my acknowledg*ments for your very kind letter, pray do me the justice to attribute my failure to its natural and but too real cause, a want of the most ordinary power of exertion, owing to the impressions made upon an old and infirm constitution by private misfortune and by public calamity. It is true, I make occasional efforts to rouse myself to something better-but I soon relapse into that state of languor, which must be the habit of my body and understanding, to the end of my short and cheerless existence in this world.

I am sincerely grateful for your kindness in connecting the interest you take in the sentiments of an old friend, with the able part you take in the service of your country. It is an instance, among many, of that happy temper, which has always given a character of amenity to your virtues, and a good-natured direction to your talents.

Your speech, on the catholic question, I read with much satisfaction. It is solid; it is convincing; it is eloquent; and it ought, on the spot, to have produced that effect, which its reason, and that contained in the other excellent speeches on the same side of the question, cannot possibly fail (though with less pleasant consequences, to produce hereafter. What a sad thing it is, that the grand instructor, Time, has not yet been able to teach the grand lesson, of his own value; and that in every question of moral and political prudence, it is the choice of the moment which renders the measure serviceable or useless, noxious or salutary.

In the catholic question I considered only one point. Was it, at the time, and in the circumstances, a measure which

tended to promote the concord of the citizens? I have no difficulty in saying, it was; and as little in saying, that the present concord of the citizens was worth buying, at a critical season, by granting a few capacities which probably no one man now living is likely to be served or hurt by. When any man tells you and me, that, if these places were left in the discretion of a protestant crown, and these memberships in the discretion of protestant electors, or patrons, that we should have a popish official system, and a popish representation, capable of overturning the establishment; he only insults our understandings. When any man tells this to catholics, he insults their understandings, and he galls their feelings. It is not the question of the places and seats; it is the real hostile disposition, and the pretended fears, that leave stings in the minds of the people. I really thought, that in the total of the late circumstances, with regard to persons, to things, to principles, and to measures, was to be found a conjuncture favourable to the introduction, and to the perpetuation of a general harmo ny, producing a general strength, which to that hour Ireland was never so happy as to enjoy. My sanguine hopes are blasted, and I must consign my feelings on that terrible disappointment, to the same patience in which I have been oblig ed to bury the vexation I suffered on the defeat of the other great, just, and honourable causes in which I have had some share; and which have given more of dignity, than of peace and advantage, to a long laborious life. Though, perhaps, a want of success might be urged as a reason for making me doubt of the justice of the part I have taken, yet, until I have other lights than one side of the debate has furnished me, I must see things and feel them too, as I see and feel them. I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of protestant ascendancy, as they affect Ireland; or of indianism, as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia; or of jacobinism, as they affect all Europe, and the state of human society itself. The last is the greatest evil. But it readily combines with the others, and flows from them. Whatever breeds discontent at this time, will produce that great master mischief most infallibly. Whatever tends to persuade the people, that the few, called by whatever name you please, religious or political, are of opinion, that their interest is not compatible with that of the many, is a great point gained to jacobinism. Whatever tends to irritate the talents of a country, which have at all times, and at these particularly, a mighty influence on the public mind, is of infinite service to that formidable cause. Unless where heaven has mingled uncom

mon ingredients of virtue in the composition-quos meliore Lato finxit præcordia Titan-talents naturally gravitate to jacobinism. Whatever ill humours are afloat in the state, they will be sure to discharge themselves, in a mingled torrent, in the cloaca maxima of jacobinism. Therefore people ought well to look about them. First the physicians are to take care that they do nothing to irritate this epidemical distemper. It is a foolish thing to have the better of the patient in a dispute. The complaint or its cause ought to be removed, and wise and lenient arts ought to precede the measures of vigour. They ought to be the ultima, not the prima, not the tota ratio of a wise government. God forbid, that on a worthy occasion authority should want the means of force or the disposition to use it. But where a prudent and enlarged policy does not precede it, and attend it too, where the hearts of the better sort of people do not go with the hands of the soldiery, you may call your constitution what you will, in effect it will consist of three parts (orders, if you please) cavalry, infantry, and artillery-and of nothing else or better.

I agree with you in your dislike of the discourses in Francisstreet: but I like as little some of those in College-green. I am even less pleased with the temper that predominated in the latter, as better things might have been expected in the regular family mansion of public discretion, than in a new and hasty assembly of unexperienced men congregated under circumstances of no small irritation. After people have taken your tests, prescribed by yourselves as proofs of their allegiance, to be marked as enemies, traitors, or at best as suspected and dangerous persons, and that they are not to be believed on their oaths, we are not to be surprised if they fall into a passion, and talk as men in a passion do, intemperately and idly.

The worst of the matter is this: You are partly leading, partly driving into jacobinism, that description of your people, whose religious principles, church polity, and habitual discipline, might make them an invincible dyke against that inundation. This you have a thousand mattocks and pickaxes lifted up to demolish. You make a sad story of the pope !O seri studiorum!-It will not be difficult to get many called catholics to laugh at this fundamental part of their religion. Never doubt it. You have succeeded in part; and you may succeed completely. But in the present state of men's minds and affairs, do not flatter yourselves that they will piously look to the head of our church in the place of that pope, whom you make them forswear; and out of all reverence to whom, you bully, and rail, and buffoon them. Perhaps you may succeed [ 30 ]

VOL. Y.

in the same manner with all the other tenets of doctrine, and usages of discipline, amongst the catholics. But what security have you, that, in the temper, and on the principles on which they have made this change, they will stop at the exact sticking places you have marked in your articles? You have no security for any thing, but that they will become, what are called Franco-Jacobins, and reject the whole together? No converts now will be made in a considerable number from one of our sects to the other upon a really religious principle. Controversy moves in another direction.

Next to religion, property is the great point of jacobin attack. Here many of the debaters in your majority, and their writers, bave given the jacobins all the assistance their hearts can wish. When the catholics desire places and seats, you tell them, that this is only a pretext; (though protestants might suppose it just possible for men to like good places, and snug boroughs for their own merits); but that their real view is, to strip protestants of their property. To my certain knowledge, till those jacobin lectures were opened in the house of commons, they never dreamt of any such thing: but now, the great professors may stimulate them to inquire (on the new principles) into the foundation of that property; and of all property. If you treat men as robbers, why robbers, sooner or later, they will become.

A third point of jacobin attack, is on old traditionary conslitutions. You are apprehensive for yours, which leans from its perpendicular, and does not stand firm on its theory. I like parliamentary reforms as little as any man who has boroughs to sell, for money, or for peerages, in Ireland. But it passes my comprehension, in what manner it is, that men can be reconciled to the practical merits of a constitution, the theory of which is in litigation, by being practically excluded from any of its advantages. Let us put ourselves in the place of these people, and try an experiment of the effects of such a procedure on our own minds. Unquestionably we should be perfectly satisfied when we were told, that houses of parliament, instead of being places of refuge for popular liberty, were citadels for keeping us in order as a conquered people. These things play the jacobin game to a nicety. Indeed, my dear sir, there is not a single particular in the Francis-street declamations, which has not, to your and to my certain knowledge, been taught by the jealous ascendants, sometimes by doctrine, sometimes by example, always by provocation. Remember the whole of 1781, and 1782-in parliament and out of parliament

at this very day, and in the worst acts and designs, observe the tenour of the objections with which the College-green ora

ters of the ascendancy reproach the catholics. You have observed, no doubt, how much they rely on the affair of Jackson. Is it not pleasant to hear catholics reproached for a supposed connexion-with whom?-With protestant clergymen, with protestant gentlemen! With Mr. Jackson!-With Mr. Rowan, &c. &c.! But egomet mi ignosco. Conspiracies and treasons are privileged pleasures, not to be profaned by the impure and unhallowed touch of papists. Indeed, all this will do perhaps well enough with detachments of dismounted cavalry, and fencibles from England. But let us not say to catholics, by way of argument, that they are to be kept in a degraded state, because some of them are no better than many of us protestants. The thing I most disliked in some of their speeches (those I mean of the catholics) was what is called the spirit of liberality so much and so diligently taught by the ascendants, by which they are made to abandon their own particular interests, and to merge them in the general discontents of the country. It gave me no pleasure to hear of the dissolution of the committee.There were in it a majority, to my knowledge, of very sober, well-intentioned men; and there were none in it, but such who, if not continually goaded and irritated, might be made useful to the tranquillity of the country. It is right always to have a few of every description, through whom you may quietly operate on the many, both for the interests of the description, and for the general interest. Excuse me, my dear friend, if I have a little tried your patience. You have brought this trouble on yourself, by your thinking of a man forgot, and who has no objection to be forgot, by the world. These things we discussed together four or five-and-thirty years go. We were then, and at bottom, ever since, of the same opinion on the justice and policy of the whole, and of every part of the penal system. You and I, and every body, must now and then ply and bend to the occasion, and take what can be got. But very sure I am, that whilst there remains in the law any principle whatever, which can furnish to certain politicians an excuse for raising an opinion of their own importance as necessary to keep their fellow subjects in order, the obnoxious people will be fretted, harassed, insulted, provoked to discontent and disorder, and practically excluded from the partial advantages from which the letter of the law does not exclude them.

Adieu! my dear sir, and believe me very truly

Beaconsfield, May 26, 1795.

Your's,

EDMUND BURKE.