avoid the great danger of our time, that of setting
up number against property. The numbers ought
never to be neglected ; because (besides what is due
to them as men) collectively, though not indivi-
dually they have great property : they ought to
have therefore protection : they ought to have
security : they ought to have even consideration :
but they ought not to predominate.
My dear Sir, I have nearly done ; I meant to
write you a long letter; I have \\ritten a long dis-
sertation. I might have done it earlier and better.
I might have been more forcible and more clear,
if I had not been interrupted as I have been ; and
this obliges me not to write to you in my own
hand. Though my hand but signs it, my heart
goes with what I have written. Since I could think
at all, those have been my thoughts. You know
that thirty-two years ago they were as fully ma-
tured in my mind as they are now. A letter of
BBS mine
A LETTER TO
mine to lord Kenmare, though not by my desire,
and full of lesser mistakes, has been printed in
Dublin. It was written ten or twelve years ago,
at the time when I began the employment, which
I have not yet finished, in favour of another dis-
tressed people, injured by those who have van-
quished them, or stolen a dominion over them. It
contained my sentiments then ; you will see how
far they accord with my sentiments now. Time
has more and more confirmed me in them all.
The present circumstances fix them deeper in my
mind.
I voted last session, if a particular vote could be
distinguished, in unanimity, for an establishment
of the church of England conjointly with the estab-
lishment which was made some years before by act
of parliament, of the Roman Catholick, in the
French conquered country of Canada. At the
time of making this English ecclesiastical establish-
ment, we did not think it necessary for its safety,
to destroy the former Gallican church settlement.
In our first act we settled a government altogether
monarchical, or nearly so. In that system, the Ca-
nadian Catholicks were far from being deprived of
the advantages or distinctions, of any kind, which
they enjoyed under their former monarchy. It is
true, that some people, and amongst them one emi-
nent divine, predicted at that time, that by this
step we should lose our dominions in America.
He
SIR HEUCULLS LANGUISH E, M. P. 373
He foretold that the pope would send his indul-
gences hither ; that the Canadians would fall in
with France ; would declare independence, and
draw or force our colonies into the same design.
The independence happened according to his pre-
diction; but in directly the reverse order. All
our English protestant countries revolted. They
joined themselves to France : and it so happened
that popish Canada was the only place which pre-
served its fidelity ; the only place in which France
got no footing ; the only peopled colony which
now remains to Great Britain. Vain are all the
prognosticks taken from ideas and passions, which
survive the state of things which gave rise to them.
When last year we gave a popular representation
to the same Canada, by the choice of the land-
holders, and an aristocratick representation, at the
choice of the Crown, neither was the choice of the
Crown, nor the election of the landholders, limited
by a consideration of religion. We had no dread
for the protestant church, which we settled there,
because we permitted the French Catholicks, in the
utmost latitude of the description, to be free sub-
jects. They are good subjects, I have no doubt ;
but I will not allow that any French Canadian Ca-
tholicks are better men or better citizens than the
Irish of the same communion. Passing from the
extremity of the west, to the extremity almost of
the east; I have been many years (now entering into
the
3J4> A LETTER TO
the twelfth) employed in supporting the rights,
privileges, laws and immunities, of a very remote
people. I have not as yet been able to finish my
task. I have struggled through much discourage-
ment and much opposition, much obloquy, much
calumny, for a people with whom I have no tie,
but the common bond of mankind. In this I have
not been left alone. We did not fly from our un-
dertaking, because the people are Mahometans or
pagans, and that a great majority of the Christians
amongst them are papists. Some gentlemen in
Ireland, I dare say, have good reasons for what
they may do, which do not occur to me. I do
not presume to condemn them : but thinking and
acting as I have done, towards these remote na-
tions, I should not know how to shew my face,
here or in Ireland, if I should say that all the pa-
gans, all the musselmen, and even all the papists
(since they must form the highest stage in the cli-
max of evil) are worthy of a liberal and honour-
able condition, except those of one of the descrip-
tions, which forms the majority of the inhabitants
of the country in which you and I were born. If
such are the Catholicks of Ireland, - ill-natured
and unjust people, from our own data, may be in-
clined not to think better of the protestants of a
soil, which is supposed to infuse into its sects a
kind of venom unknown in other places.
You hated the old system as early as I did. Your
first
SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, M. P. 375
first juvenile lance was broken against that giant.
I think you were even the first who attacked the
grim phantom. You have an exceedingly good un-
derstanding, very good humour, and the best heart
in the world. The dictates of that temper and
that heart, as well as the policy pointed out by
that understanding, led you to abhor the old code.
You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfec-
tion. For I must do it justice : it was a complete
system, full of coherence and consistency; well di-
gested and well composed in all its parts. It was
a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance ; and
as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment,
and degradation of a people, and the debasement,
in them, of human nature itself, as ever proceeded
from the perverted ingenuity of man. It is a thing
humiliating enough, that we are doubtful of the
effect of the medicines we compound. We are
sure of our poisons. My opinion ever was (in
which I heartily agree with those that admired
the old code) that it was so constructed, that if
there was once a breach in any essential part of it ;
the ruin of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was
at some time or other, a certainty. For that rea-
son I honour, and shall for ever honour and love
you, and those who first caused it to stagger, crack,
and gape. Others may finish; the beginners have
the glory ; and, take what part you please at this
hour, (I think you will take the best) your first
services
376 A LETTER, &C.
services will never be forgotten by a grateful coun-
try. Adieu ! Present my best regards to those I
know, and as many as I know in our country, I
Honour. There never was so much ability, nor,
I believe, virtue, in it. They have a task worthy
of both. I doubt not they will perform it, for the
stability of the church and state, and for the union
and the separation of the people : for the union of
the honest and peaceable of all sects; for their
separation from all that is ill-intentioned and
seditious in any of them.
Beaconsfield, January 3, 1792.
f
.
THE END OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.
. .
,
Luke Hansard & Sons,
near Lincwln's-Inn Field*.
from which it was borrowed
UCLA-College Library
PR 3334 B4 1826 v.6
II III II III! I III! Ill I II
A 001 161 464 1