Dear Abraham--No Catholic can be chief Governor or Governor of this
kingdom, Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord High Treasurer,
Chief of any of the Courts of Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Puisne Judge, Judge in the Admiralty, Master of the Rolls, Secretary
of State, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Vice-Treasurer or his Deputy,
Teller or Cashier of Exchequer, Auditor or General, Governor or Gustos
Rotulorum of Counties, Chief Governor's Secretary, Privy Councillor,
King's Counsel, Serjeant, Attorney, Solicitor-General, Master in
Chancery, Provost or Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin,
Postmaster-General, Master and Lieutenant-General of Ordnance,
Commander-in-Chief, General on the Staff, Sheriff, Sub-Sheriff, Mayor,
Bailiff, Recorder, Burgess, or any other officer in a City, or a
Corporation. No Catholic can be guardian to a Protestant, and no
priest guardian at all; no Catholic can be a gamekeeper, or have for
sale, or otherwise, any arms or warlike stores; no Catholic can
present to a living, unless he choose to turn Jew in order to obtain
that privilege; the pecuniary qualification of Catholic jurors is made
higher than that of Protestants, and no relaxation of the ancient
rigorous code is permitted, unless to those who shall take an oath
prescribed by 13 and 14 George III. Now if this is not picking the
plums out of the pudding and leaving the mere batter to the Catholics,
I know not what is. If it were merely the Privy Council, it would be
(I allow) nothing but a point of honour for which the mass of
Catholics were contending, the honour of being chief-mourners or
pall-bearers to the country; but surely no man will contend that every
barrister may not speculate upon the possibility of being a Puisne
Judge; and that every shopkeeper must not feel himself injured by his
exclusion from borough offices.
One of the greatest practical evils which the Catholics suffer in
Ireland is their exclusion from the offices of Sheriff and Deputy
Sheriff. Nobody who is unacquainted with Ireland can conceive the
obstacles which this opposes to the fair administration of justice.
The formation of juries is now entirely in the hands of the
Protestants; the lives, liberties, and properties of the Catholics in
the hands of the juries; and this is the arrangement for the
administration of justice in a country where religious prejudices are
inflamed to the greatest degree of animosity! In this country, if a
man be a foreigner, if he sell slippers, and sealing wax, and
artificial flowers, we are so tender of human life that we take care
half the number of persons who are to decide upon his fate should be
men of similar prejudices and feelings with himself: but a poor
Catholic in Ireland may be tried by twelve Percevals, and destroyed
according to the manner of that gentleman in the name of the Lord, and
with all the insulting forms of justice. I do not go the length of
saying that deliberate and wilful injustice is done. I have no doubt
that the Orange Deputy Sheriff thinks it would be a most unpardonable
breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. I can
easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves very
conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the crucifix; but I blame
the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable tenor
of those feelings which must unconsciously influence the judgments of
mankind. I detest that state of society which extends unequal degrees
of protection to different creeds and persuasions; and I cannot
describe to you the contempt I feel for a man who, calling himself a
statesman, defends a system which fills the heart of every Irishman
with treason, and makes his allegiance prudence, not choice.
I request to know if the vestry taxes in Ireland are a mere matter of
romantic feeling which can affect only the Earl of Fingal? In a parish
where there are four thousand Catholics and fifty Protestants, the
Protestants may meet together in a vestry meeting at which no Catholic
has the right to vote, and tax all the lands in the parish 1s. 6d. per
acre, or in the pound, I forget which, for the repairs of the
church--and how has the necessity of these repairs been ascertained? A
Protestant plumber has discovered that it wants new leading; a
Protestant carpenter is convinced the timbers are not sound; and the
glazier who hates holy water (as an accoucheur hates celibacy, because
he gets nothing by it) is employed to put in new sashes.
The grand juries in Ireland are the great scene of jobbing. They have
a power of making a county rate to a considerable extent for roads,
bridges, and other objects of general accommodation. 'You suffer the
road to be brought through my park, and I will have the bridge
constructed in a situation where it will make a beautiful object to
your house. You do my job, and I will do yours.' These are the sweet
and interesting subjects which occasionally occupy Milesian gentlemen
while they are attendant upon this grand inquest of justice. But there
is a religion, it seems, even in jobs; and it will be highly
gratifying to Mr. Perceval to learn that no man in Ireland who
believes in seven sacraments can carry a public road, or bridge, one
yard out of the direction most beneficial to the public, and that
nobody can cheat the public who does not expound the Scriptures in the
purest and most orthodox manner. This will give pleasure to Mr.
Perceval: but, from his unfairness upon these topics I appeal to the
justice and the proper feelings of Mr. Huskisson. I ask him if the
human mind can experience a more dreadful sensation than to see its
own jobs refused, and the jobs of another religion perpetually
succeeding? I ask him his opinion of a jobless faith, of a creed which
dooms a man through life to a lean and plunderless integrity. He knows
that human nature cannot and will not bear it; and if we were to paint
a political Tartarus, it would be an endless series of snug
expectations and cruel disappointments. These are a few of many
dreadful inconveniences which the Catholics of all ranks suffer from
the laws by which they are at present oppressed. Besides, look at
human nature: what is the history of all professions? Joel is to be
brought up to the bar: has Mrs. Plymley the slightest doubt of his
being Chancellor? Do not his two shrivelled aunts live in the
certainty of seeing him in that situation, and of cutting out with
their own hands his equity habiliments? And I could name a certain
minister of the Gospel who does not, in the bottom of his heart, much
differ from these opinions. Do you think that the fathers and mothers
of the holy Catholic Church are not as absurd as Protestant papas and
mammas? The probability I admit to be, in each particular case, that
the sweet little blockhead will in fact never get a brief;--but I will
venture to say there is not a parent from the Giant's Causeway to
Bantry Bay who does not conceive that his child is the unfortunate
victim of the exclusion, and that nothing short of positive law could
prevent his own dear, pre-eminent Paddy from rising to the highest
honours of the State. So with the army and parliament; in fact, few
are excluded; but, in imagination, all: you keep twenty or thirty
Catholics out, and you lose the affections of four millions; and, let
me tell you, that recent circumstances have by no means tended to
diminish in the minds of men that hope of elevation beyond their own
rank which is so congenial to our nature: from pleading for John Roe
to taxing John Bull, from jesting for Mr. Pitt and writing in the
_Anti-Jacobin_, to managing the affairs of Europe--these are leaps
which seem to justify the fondest dreams of mothers and of aunts.
I do not say that the disabilities to which the Catholics are exposed
amount to such intolerable grievances, that the strength and industry
of a nation are overwhelmed by them: the increasing prosperity of
Ireland fully demonstrates to the contrary. But I repeat again, what I
have often stated in the course of our correspondence, that your laws
against the Catholics are exactly in that state in which you have
neither the benefits of rigour nor of liberality: every law which
prevented the Catholic from gaining strength and wealth is repealed;
every law which can irritate remains; if you were determined to insult
the Catholics you should have kept them weak; if you resolved to give
them strength, you should have ceased to insult them--at present your
conduct is pure, unadulterated folly.
Lord Hawkesbury says, 'We heard nothing about the Catholics till we
began to mitigate the laws against them; when we relieved them in part
from this oppression they began to be disaffected.' This is very true;
but it proves just what I have said, that you have either done too
much or too little; and as there lives not, I hope, upon earth, so
depraved a courtier that he would load the Catholics with their
ancient chains, what absurdity it is, then, not to render their
dispositions friendly, when you leave their arms and legs free!
You know, and many Englishmen know, what passes in China; but nobody
knows or cares what passes in Ireland. At the beginning of the
present reign no Catholic could realise property, or carry on any
business; they were absolutely annihilated, and had no more agency in
the country than so many trees. They were like Lord Mulgrave's
eloquence and Lord Camden's wit; the legislative bodies did not know
of their existence. For these twenty-five years last past the
Catholics have been engaged in commerce; within that period the
commerce of Ireland has doubled--there are four Catholics at work for
one Protestant, and eight Catholics at work for one Episcopalian. Of
course, the proportion which Catholic wealth bears to Protestant
wealth is every year altering rapidly in favour of the Catholics. I
have already told you what their purchases of land were the last year:
since that period I have been at some pains to find out the actual
state of the Catholic wealth: it is impossible upon such a subject to
arrive at complete accuracy; but I have good reason to believe that
there are at present 2000 Catholics in Ireland possessing an income of
£500 and upwards, many of these with incomes of one, two, three, and
four thousand, and some amounting to fifteen and twenty thousand per
annum:--and this is the kingdom, and these the people, for whose
conciliation we are to wait Heaven knows when, and Lord Hawkesbury
why! As for me, I never think of the situation of Ireland without
feeling the same necessity for immediate interference as I should do
if I saw blood flowing from a great artery. I rush towards it with
the instinctive rapidity of a man desirous of preventing death, and
have no other feeling but that in a few seconds the patient may be no
more.
I could not help smiling, in the times of No Popery, to witness the
loyal indignation of many persons at the attempt made by the last
ministry to do something for the relief of Ireland. The general cry in
the country was, that they would not see their beloved Monarch used
ill in his old age, and that they would stand by him to the last drop
of their blood. I respect good feelings, however erroneous be the
occasions on which they display themselves; and therefore I saw in all
this as much to admire as to blame. It was a species of affection,
however, which reminded me very forcibly of the attachment displayed
by the servants of the Russian ambassador at the beginning of the last
century. His Excellency happened to fall down in a kind of apoplectic
fit, when he was paying a morning visit in the house of an
acquaintance. The confusion was of course very great, and messengers
were despatched in every direction to find a surgeon: who, upon his
arrival, declared that his Excellency must be immediately blooded, and
prepared himself forthwith to perform the operation: the barbarous
servants of the embassy, who were there in great numbers, no sooner
saw the surgeon prepared to wound the arm of their master with a
sharp, shining instrument, than they drew their swords, put themselves
in an attitude of defence, and swore in pure Sclavonic, 'that they
would murder any man who attempted to do him the slightest injury: he
had been a very good master to them, and they would not desert him in
his misfortunes, or suffer his blood to be shed while he was off his
guard, and incapable of defending himself.' By good fortune, the
secretary arrived about this period of the dispute, and his
Excellency, relieved from superfluous blood and perilous affection,
was, after much difficulty, restored to life.
There is an argument brought forward with some appearance of
plausibility in the House of Commons, which certainly merits an
answer: You know that the Catholics now vote for members of parliament
in Ireland, and that they outnumber the Protestants in a very great
proportion; if you allow Catholics to sit in parliament, religion will
be found to influence votes more than property, and the greater part
of the 100 Irish members who are returned to parliament will be
Catholics. Add to these the Catholic members who are returned in
England, and you will have a phalanx of heretical strength which every
minister will be compelled to respect, and occasionally to conciliate
by concessions incompatible with the interests of the Protestant
Church. The fact is, however, that you are at this moment subjected to
every danger of this kind which you can possibly apprehend hereafter.
If the spiritual interests of the voters are more powerful than their
temporal interests, they can bind down their representatives to
support any measures favourable to the Catholic religion, and they can
change the objects of their choice till they have found Protestant
members (as they easily may do) perfectly obedient to their wishes. If
the superior possessions of the Protestants prevent the Catholics from
uniting for a common political object, then danger you fear cannot
exist: if zeal, on the contrary, gets the better of acres, then the
danger at present exists, from the right of voting already given to
the Catholics, and it will not be increased by allowing them to sit in
parliament. There are, as nearly as I can recollect, thirty seats in
Ireland for cities and counties, where the Protestants are the most
numerous, and where the members returned must of course be
Protestants. In the other seventy representations the wealth of the
Protestants is opposed to the number of the Catholics; and if all the
seventy members returned were of the Catholic persuasion, they must
still plot the destruction of our religion in the midst of 588
Protestants. Such terrors would disgrace a cook-maid, or a toothless
aunt--when they fall from the lips of bearded and senatorial men, they
are nauseous, antiperistaltic, and emetical.
How can you for a moment doubt of the rapid effects which would be
produced by the emancipation? In the first place, to my certain
knowledge the Catholics have long since expressed to his Majesty's
Ministers their perfect readiness _to vest in his Majesty, either with
the consent of the Pope, or without it if it cannot be obtained, the
nomination of the Catholic prelacy_. The Catholic prelacy in Ireland
consists of twenty-six bishops and the warden of Galway, a dignitary
enjoying Catholic jurisdiction. The number of Roman Catholic priests
in Ireland exceeds one thousand. The expenses of his peculiar worship
are, to a substantial farmer or mechanic, five shillings per annum; to
a labourer (where he is not entirely excused) one shilling per annum;
this includes the contribution of the whole family, and for this the
priest is bound to attend them when sick, and to confess them when
they apply to him; he is also to keep his chapel in order, to
celebrate divine service, and to preach on Sundays and holydays. In
the northern district a priest gains from £30 to £50; in the other
parts of Ireland from £60 to £90 per annum. The best paid Catholic
bishops receive about £400 per annum; the others from £300 to £350. My
plan is very simple: I would have 300 Catholic parishes at £100 per
annum, 300 at £200 per annum, and 400 at £300 per annum; this, for the
whole thousand parishes, would amount to £190,000. To the prelacy I
would allot £20,000 in unequal proportions, from £1000 to £500; and I
would appropriate £40,000 more for the support of Catholic Schools,
and the repairs of Catholic churches; the whole amount of which sum is
£250,000, about the expense of three days of one of our genuine, good
English _just and necessary wars_. The clergy should all receive their
salaries at the Bank of Ireland, and I would place the whole patronage
in the hands of the Crown. Now, I appeal to any human being, except
Spencer Perceval, Esq., of the parish of Hampstead, what the
disaffection of a clergy would amount to, gaping after this graduated
bounty of the Crown, and whether Ignatius Loyola himself, if he were a
living blockhead instead of a dead saint, could withstand the
temptation of bouncing from £100 a year at Sligo, to £300 in
Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants
and landowners and nobility of England are exposing themselves to the
tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The sinecure places of the Roses
and the Percevals, and the 'dear and near relations,' put up to
auction at thirty years' purchase, would almost amount to the money.
I admit that nothing can be more reasonable than to expect that a
Catholic priest should starve to death, genteelly and pleasantly, for
the good of the Protestant religion; but is it equally reasonable to
expect that he should do so for the Protestant pews, and Protestant
brick and mortar? On an Irish Sabbath the bell of a neat parish
church often summons to church only the parson and an occasionally
conforming clerk; while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics
are huddled together in a miserable hovel, and pelted by all the
storms of heaven. Can anything be more distressing than to see a
venerable man pouring forth sublime truths in tattered breeches, and
depending for his food upon the little offal he gets from his
parishioners? I venerate a human being who starves for his principles,
let them be what they may; but starving for anything is not at all to
the taste of the honourable flagellants: strict principles, and good
pay, is the motto of Mr. Perceval: the one he keeps in great measure
for the faults of his enemies, the other for himself.
There are parishes in Connaught in which a Protestant was never
settled nor even seen. In that province, in Munster, and in parts of
Leinster, the entire peasantry for sixty miles are Catholics; in these
tracts the churches are frequently shut for want of a congregation, or
opened to an assemblage of from six to twenty persons. Of what
Protestants there are in Ireland, the greatest part are gathered
together in Ulster, or they live in towns. In the country of the other
three provinces the Catholics see no other religion but their own, and
are at the least as fifteen to one Protestant. In the diocese of Tuam
they are sixty to one; in the parish of St. Mulins, diocese of
Leghlin, there are four thousand Catholics and one Protestant; in the
town of Grasgenamana, in the county of Kilkenny, there are between
four and five hundred Catholic houses, and three Protestant houses. In
the parish of Allen, county Kildare, there is no Protestant, though it
is very populous. In the parish of Arlesin, Queen's County, the
proportion is one hundred to one. In the whole county of Kilkenny, by
actual enumeration, it is seventeen to one; in the diocese of
Kilmacduagh, province of Connaught, fifty-two to one, by ditto. These
I give you as a few specimens of the present state of Ireland; and yet
there are men impudent and ignorant enough to contend that such evils
require no remedy, and that mild family man who dwelleth in Hampstead
can find none but the cautery and the knife.
----'Omne per ignem
Excoquitur vitium.'
I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr.
Perceval call upon the then Ministry for measures of vigour in
Ireland. If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats and claret; if I
walked to church every Sunday before eleven young gentlemen of my own
begetting, with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed;
if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort--how awfully
would I pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the
cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of
Ireland! How easy it is to shed human blood; how easy it is to
persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the decision
has cost us a severe struggle; how much in all ages have wounds and
shrieks and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of
mankind; how difficult and how noble it is to govern in kindness and
to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and
affection! But what do men call vigour? To let loose hussars and to
bring up artillery, to govern with lighted matches, and to cut, and
push, and prime; I call this not vigour, but the _sloth of cruelty and
ignorance_. The vigour I love consists in finding out wherein subjects
are aggrieved, in relieving them, in studying the temper and genius of
a people, in consulting their prejudices, in selecting proper persons
to lead and manage them, in the laborious, watchful, and difficult
task of increasing public happiness by allaying each particular
discontent. In this way Hoche pacified La Vendée--and in this way only
will Ireland ever be subdued. But this, in the eyes of Mr. Perceval,
is imbecility and meanness. Houses are not broken open, women are not
insulted, the people seem all to be happy; they are not rode over by
horses, and cut by whips. Do you call this vigour? Is this government?
VI.--'LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES,
SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. LETTER TO JACK HARROW.'