solely upon what will appear best for the conservation of the state on
its present basis, I should recommend it to your serious thoughts,
whether the narrowing of the foundation is always the best way to secure
the building? The body of disfranchised men will not be perfectly
satisfied to remain always in that state. If they are not satisfied, you
have two millions of subjects in your bosom full of uneasiness: not that
they cannot overturn the Act of Settlement, and put themselves and you
under an arbitrary master; or that they are not permitted to spawn a
hydra of wild republics, on principles of a pretended natural equality
in man; but because you will not suffer them to enjoy the ancient,
fundamental, tried advantages of a British Constitution,--that you will
not permit them to profit of the protection of a common father or the
freedom of common citizens, and that the only reason which can be
assigned for this disfranchisement has a tendency more deeply to
ulcerate their minds than the act of exclusion itself. What the
consequence of such feelings must be it is for you to look to. To warn
is not to menace.
I am far from asserting that men will not excite disturbances without
just cause. I know that such an assertion is not true. But neither is it
true that disturbances have never just complaints for their origin. I am
sure that it is hardly prudent to furnish them with such causes of
complaint as every man who thinks the British Constitution a benefit may
think at least colorable and plausible.
Several are in dread of the manÅuvres of certain persons among the
Dissenters, who turn this ill humor to their own ill purposes. You know,
better than I can, how much these proceedings of certain among the
Dissenters are to be feared. You are to weigh, with the temper which is
natural to you, whether it may be for the safety of our establishment
that the Catholics should be ultimately persuaded that they have no hope
to enter into the Constitution but through the Dissenters.
Think whether this be the way to prevent or dissolve factious
combinations against the Church or the State. Reflect seriously on the
possible consequences of keeping in the heart of your country a bank of
discontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every description of
seditious men may draw at pleasure. They whose principles of faction
will dispose them to the establishment of an arbitrary monarchy will
find a nation of men who have no sort of interest in freedom, but who
will have an interest in that equality of justice or favor with which a
wise despot must view all his subjects who do not attack the foundations
of his power. Love of liberty itself may, in such men, become the means
of establishing an arbitrary domination. On the other hand, they who
wish for a democratic republic will find a set of men who have no choice
between civil servitude and the entire ruin of a mixed Constitution.
Suppose the people of Ireland divided into three parts. Of these, (I
speak within compass,) two are Catholic; of the remaining third, one
half is composed of Dissenters. There is no natural union between those
descriptions. It may be produced. If the two parts Catholic be driven
into a close confederacy with half the third part of Protestants, with a
view to a change in the Constitution in Church or State or both, and you
rest the whole of their security on a handful of gentlemen, clergy, and
their dependents,--compute the strength _you have in Ireland_, to oppose
to grounded discontent, to capricious innovation, to blind popular fury,
and to ambitious, turbulent intrigue.
You mention that the minds of some gentlemen are a good deal heated, and
that it is often said, that, rather than submit to such persons, having
a share in their franchises, they would throw up their independence, and
precipitate an union with Great Britain. I have heard a discussion
concerning such an union amongst all sorts of men ever since I remember
anything. For my own part, I have never been able to bring my mind to
anything clear and decisive upon the subject. There cannot be a more
arduous question. As far as I can form an opinion, it would not be for
the mutual advantage of the two kingdoms. Persons, however, more able
than I am think otherwise. But whatever the merits of this union may be,
to make it a _menace_, it must be shown to be an _evil_, and an evil
more particularly to those who are threatened with it than to those who
hold it out as a terror. I really do not see how this threat of an union
can operate, or that the Catholics are more likely to be losers by that
measure than the churchmen.
The humors of the people, and of politicians too, are so variable in
themselves, and are so much under the occasional influence of some
leading men, that it is impossible to know what turn the public mind
here would take on such an event. There is but one thing certain
concerning it. Great divisions and vehement passions would precede this
union, both on the measure itself and on its terms; and particularly,
this very question of a share in the representation for the Catholics,
from whence the project of an union originated, would form a principal
part in the discussion; and in the temper in which some gentlemen seem
inclined to throw themselves, by a sort of high, indignant passion, into
the scheme, those points would not be deliberated with all possible
calmness.
From my best observation, I should greatly doubt, whether, in the end,
these gentlemen would obtain their object, so as to make the exclusion
of two millions of their countrymen a fundamental article in the union.
The demand would be of a nature quite unprecedented. You might obtain
the union; and yet a gentleman, who, under the new union establishment,
would aspire to the honor of representing his county, might possibly be
as much obliged, as he may fear to be under the old separate
establishment, to the unsupportable mortification of asking his
neighbors, who have a different opinion concerning the elements in the
sacrament, for their votes.
I believe, nay, I am sure, that the people of Great Britain, with or
without an union, might be depended upon, in oases of any real danger,
to aid the government of Ireland, with the same cordiality as they would
support their own, against any wicked attempts to shake the security of
the happy Constitution in Church and State. But before Great Britain
engages in any quarrel, the _cause of the dispute_ would certainly be a
part of her consideration. If confusions should arise in that kingdom
from too steady an attachment to a proscriptive, monopolizing system,
and from the resolution of regarding the franchise, and in it the
security of the subject, as belonging rather to religious opinions than
to civil qualification and civil conduct, I doubt whether you might
quite certainly reckon on obtaining an aid of force from hence for the
support of that system. We might extend your distractions to this
country by taking part in them. England will be indisposed, I suspect,
to send an army for the conquest of Ireland. What was done in 1782 is a
decisive proof of her sentiments of justice and moderation. She will not
be fond of making another American war in Ireland. The principles of
such a war would but too much resemble the former one. The well-disposed
and the ill-disposed in England would (for different reasons perhaps)
be equally averse to such an enterprise. The confiscations, the public
auctions, the private grants, the plantations, the transplantations,
which formerly animated so many adventurers, even among sober citizens,
to such Irish expeditions, and which possibly might have animated some
of them to the American, can have no existence in the case that we
suppose.
Let us form a supposition, (no foolish or ungrounded supposition,) that,
in an age when men are infinitely more disposed to heat themselves with
political than religious controversies, the former should entirely
prevail, as we see that in some places they have prevailed, over the
latter,--and that the Catholics of Ireland, from the courtship paid them
on the one hand, and the high tone of refusal on the other, should, in
order to enter into all the rights of subjects, all become Protestant
Dissenters, and, as the others do, take all your oaths. They would all
obtain their civil objects; and the change, for anything I know to the
contrary, (in the dark as I am about the Protestant Dissenting tenets,)
might be of use to the health of their souls. But what security our
Constitution, in Church or State, could derive from that event, I cannot
possibly discern. Depend upon it, it is as true as Nature is true, that,
if you force them out of the religion of habit, education, or opinion,
it is not to yours they will ever go. Shaken in their minds, they will
go to that where the dogmas are fewest,--where they are the most
uncertain,--where they lead them the least to a consideration of what
they have abandoned. They will go to that uniformly democratic system to
whose first movements they owed their emancipation. I recommend you
seriously to turn this in your mind. Believe that it requires your best
and maturest thoughts. Take what course you please,--union or no union;
whether the people remain Catholics or become Protestant Dissenters,
sure it is that the present state of monopoly _cannot_ continue.
If England were animated, as I think she is not, with her former spirit
of domination, and with the strong theological hatred which she once
cherished for that description of her fellow-Christians and
fellow-subjects, I am yet convinced, that, after the fullest success in
a ruinous struggle, you would be obliged to abandon that monopoly. We
were obliged to do this, even when everything promised success, in the
American business. If you should make this experiment at last, under the
pressure of any necessity, you never can do it well. But if, instead of
falling into a passion, the leading gentlemen of the country themselves
should undertake the business cheerfully, and with hearty affection
towards it, great advantages would follow. What is forced cannot be
modified: but here you may measure your concessions.
It is a consideration of great moment, that you make the desired
admission without altering the system of your representation in the
smallest degree or in any part. You may leave that deliberation of a
Parliamentary change or reform, if ever you should think fit to engage
in it, uncomplicated and unembarrassed with the other question. Whereas,
if they are mixed and confounded, as some people attempt to mix and
confound them, no one can answer for the effects on the Constitution
itself.
There is another advantage in taking up this business singly and by an
arrangement for the single object. It is that you may proceed by
_degrees_. We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most
powerful law of Nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. All
we can do, and that human wisdom can do, is to provide that the change
shall proceed by insensible degrees. This has all the benefits which may
be in change, without any of the inconveniences of mutation. Everything
is provided for as it arrives. This mode will, on the one hand, prevent
the _unfixing old interests at once_: a thing which is apt to breed a
black and sullen discontent in those who are at once dispossessed of all
their influence and consideration. This gradual course, on the other
side, will prevent men long under depression from being intoxicated with
a large draught of new power, which they always abuse with a licentious
insolence. But, wishing, as I do, the change to be gradual and cautious,
I would, in my first steps, lean rather to the side of enlargement than
restriction.
It is one excellence of our Constitution, that all our rights of
provincial election regard rather property than person. It is another,
that the rights which approach more nearly to the personal are most of
them corporate, and suppose a restrained and strict education of seven
years in some useful occupation. In both cases the practice may have
slid from the principle. The standard of qualification in both cases may
be so low, or not so judiciously chosen, as in some degree to frustrate
the end. But all this is for your prudence in the case before you. You
may rise a step or two the qualification of the Catholic voters. But if
you were to-morrow to put the Catholic freeholder on the footing of the
most favored forty-shilling Protestant Dissenter, you know, that, such
is the actual state of Ireland, this would not make a sensible
alteration in almost any _one_ election in the kingdom. The effect in
their favor, even defensively, would be infinitely slow. But it would be
healing; it would be satisfactory and protecting. The stigma would be
removed. By admitting settled, permanent substance in lieu of the
numbers, you would 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
individually, 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 written a long dissertation. 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 matured in my mind
as they are now. A letter of 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 favor of another
distressed people, injured by those who have vanquished 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 establishment, which was made some years before by act of
Parliament, of the Roman Catholic, in the French conquered country of
Canada. At the time of making this English ecclesiastical establishment,
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 Canadian
Catholics 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 eminent
divine, predicted at that time that by this step we should lose our
dominions in America. He foretold that the Pope would send his
indulgences 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 prediction; but in
directly the reverse order. All our English Protestant colonies
revolted. They joined themselves to France; and it so happened that
Popish Canada was the only place which preserved 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 prognostics 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 landholders, and an aristocratic 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 Catholics, in the utmost latitude of the
description, to be free subjects. They are good subjects, I have no
doubt; but I will not allow that any French Canadian Catholics 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 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 discouragement 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
undertaking 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 those remote nations, I
should not know how to show my face, here or in Ireland, if I should say
that all the Pagans, all the Mussulmen, and even all the Papists, (since
they must form the highest stage in the climax of evil,) are worthy of a
liberal and honorable condition, except those of one of the
descriptions, which forms the majority of the inhabitants of the
country in which you and I were born. If such are the Catholics of
Ireland, ill-natured and unjust people, from our own data, may be
inclined 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 juvenile lance
was broken against that giant. I think you were even the first who
attacked the grim phantom. You have an exceedingly good understanding,
very good humor, 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 perfection. For I must do it justice: it was a complete
system, full of coherence and consistency, well digested 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 reason I honor and shall forever
honor 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 will never be forgotten by a grateful country. Adieu!
Present my best regards to those I know,--and as many as I know in our
country I honor. 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] The letter is written on folio sheets.
[29] A small error of fact as to the abjuration oath, but of no
importance in the argument.
HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL
TO BE DELIVERED TO
MONSIEUR DE M.M.
WRITTEN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1791
The King, my master, from his sincere desire of keeping up a good
correspondence with his Most Christian Majesty and the French nation,
has for some time beheld with concern the condition into which that
sovereign and nation have fallen.
Notwithstanding the reality and the warmth of those sentiments, his
Britannic Majesty has hitherto forborne in any manner to take part in
their affairs, in hopes that the common interest of king and subjects
would render all parties sensible of the necessity of settling their
government and their freedom upon principles of moderation, as the only
means of securing permanence to both those blessings, as well as
internal and external tranquillity to the kingdom of France, and to all
Europe.
His Britannic Majesty finds, to his great regret, that his hopes have
not been realized. He finds that confusions and disorders have rather
increased than diminished, and that they now threaten to proceed to
dangerous extremities.
In this situation of things, the same regard to a neighboring sovereign
living in friendship with Great Britain, the same spirit of good-will to
the kingdom of France, the same regard to the general tranquillity,
which have caused him to view with concern the growth and continuance of
the present disorders, have induced the King of Great Britain to
interpose his good offices towards a reconcilement of those unhappy
differences. This his Majesty does with the most cordial regard to the
good of all descriptions concerned, and with the most perfect sincerity,
wholly removing from his royal mind all memory of every circumstance
which might impede him in the execution of a plan of benevolence which
he has so much at heart.
His Majesty, having always thought it his greatest glory that he rules
over a people perfectly and solidly, because soberly, rationally, and
legally free, can never be supposed to proceed in offering thus his
royal mediation, but with an unaffected desire and full resolution to
consider the settlement of a free constitution in France as the very
basis of any agreement between the sovereign and those of his subjects
who are unhappily at variance with him,--to guaranty it to them, if it
should be desired, in the most solemn and authentic manner, and to do
all that in him lies to procure the like guaranty from other powers.
His Britannic Majesty, in the same manner, assures the Most Christian
King that he knows too well and values too highly what is due to the
dignity and rights of crowned heads, and to the implied faith of
treaties which have always been made with the _crown_ of France, ever to
listen to any proposition by which that monarchy shall be despoiled of
all its rights, so essential for the support of the consideration of the
prince and the concord and welfare of the people.
If, unfortunately, a due attention should not be paid to these his
Majesty's benevolent and neighborly offers, or if any circumstances
should prevent the Most Christian King from acceding (as his Majesty
has no doubt he is well disposed to do) to this healing mediation in
favor of himself and all his subjects, his Majesty has commanded me to
take leave of this court, as not conceiving it to be suitable to the
dignity of his crown, and to what he owes to his faithful people, any
longer to keep a public minister at the court of a sovereign who is not
in possession of his own liberty.
THOUGHTS
ON
FRENCH AFFAIRS,
ETC., ETC.
WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791.
THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.
In all our transactions with France, and at all periods, we have treated
with that state on the footing of a monarchy. Monarchy was considered in
all the external relations of that kingdom with every power in Europe as
its legal and constitutional government, and that in which alone its
federal capacity was vested.
[Sidenote: Montmorin's Letter.]
It is not yet a year since Monsieur de Montmorin formally, and with as
little respect as can be imagined to the king, and to all crowned heads,
announced a total Revolution in that country. He has informed the
British ministry that its frame of government is wholly altered,--that
he is one of the ministers of the new system,--and, in effect, that the
king is no longer his master, (nor does he even call him such,) but the
"_first of the ministers_," in the new system.
[Sidenote: Acceptance of the Constitution ratified.]
The second notification was that of the king's acceptance of the new
Constitution, accompanied with fanfaronades in the modern style of the
French bureaus: things which have much more the air and character of the
saucy declamations of their clubs than the tone of regular office.
It has not been very usual to notify to foreign courts anything
concerning the internal arrangements of any state. In the present case,
the circumstance of these two notifications, with the observations with
which they are attended, does not leave it in the choice of the
sovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of this French
Revolution or (what is more important) of its principles.