"being grateful, will they not become more haughty-inftead of being contented, will

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66

they not meditate new demands? And will "they not be encouraged to prefs every demand, "however unreasonable, on the fuppofition that "their ftrength is irrefiftible?"

in

That the British Ministry did really argue this manner I pretend not to affert; but if they did, I conceive it would be hard to prove that fuch reafoning was at all contrary to common juftice, or common fenfe. Let the reader fuppose himself, for a moment, in the place of the Duke of Portland, or of any other Minister in his Majefty's Cabinet Council, and then fay whether, on confidering the question in the light of Lord Fitzwilliam's communications, he would not have been led to form a precisely fimilar conclufion?

It is an axiom in politics, that Governments, if ftrong enough to maintain their ground, ought never to yield to intimidation; because a government acting from fear of the governed is, in effect, a Government no longer; it is a contradiction in terms, a radical abfurdity. A Government, then, only performs its functions legitimately when it acts from reason; but when fear predominates, reafon is fufpended;

and

and when a Government acts from fear of that very force, the regulating and due reftraining of which is its chief end and defign, it is, to all intents and purposes, deftroyed: we might

as well conceive the idea of a man alive and dead at one and the fame moment, as that of a regular Government, determined in its conduct by the menaces of the multitude. That a Government ought ever to liften and to yield to reason, I moft readily grant; but, in the prefent cafe, if my Lord Fitzwilliam's statement be correct, the Roman Catholics fcarcely condefcended to reafon at all. Heretofore they had reasoned, and, when they reasoned, they had been fuccessful; but now, it feems, they preferred the more cogent argument. They had not as yet, with refpect to their new demands, tried the event of a petition either to the legislature or to the Crown; and yet, fays my Lord Fitzwilliam, "I have great fears about keeping them quiet "during the Seffion."

But befides the general impolicy of a government. yielding to intimidation, there was another confideration in the prefent cafe which, I trust, many, even among the Roman Catholics themfelves, will allow to be worthy of attention-I mean the fecurity of the Irish Proteftants. It furely will not be difputed, that the British Ca

binet was bound in reafon and in juftice to take the fafety of these into the account, and, confequently, that it was fair to enquire in what manner they might be affected, by conceding in the prefent inftance. Let it be obferved that what I have to fay upon this point, I do not wish to be applied to Catholic Emancipation in the abftract. Such a measure, brought about by the filent, but refiftlefs, energy of good fenfe and growing benevolence, both on the one fide and on the other, and under circumftances which would furnish a reafonable fecurity against any dangerous predominance of the more numerous party, would, I conceive, be quite a different matter from what we have now to confider. I

fpeak of Emancipation only as obtained by the motives which it is clear Lord Fitzwilliam chiefly dwelt upon in his correfpondence with the Englifh Cabinet, I mean those of menace and alarm. And from Roman Catholic Emancipation, fo obtained, I muft fay, that the Proteftants of this kingdom had every thing to apprehend.

It is no affront to the Irish Catholics to fuppose that they are but men; but more than men they must be, if, after having gained their point, by intimidating the Miniftry in England, they would have refted fatisfied with any thing fhort of abfolute afcendency in Ireland.

Heaven

knows

knows I bear the fincereft good will towards the Irish Catholics, but I cannot give them credit for what is not in human nature. Like all other bodies of men that ever exifted, they must be under the influence of that potent principle, which has not unfitly been called the Esprit du Corps; they muft, even in their mildeft temper, and under the moft conciliating circumftances, defire not merely equality, but fuperiority, for their own party, and would neceffarily confider as rivals those who should feem to ftand in their way to that attractive pre-eminence.

If, then, the Catholic body fhould come into full political power, with the perfuafion that they were indebted for every thing to their own force, and to the apprehenfions of those who had yielded to them, in the name of Heaven where could they be fuppofed to ftop? Would they not conclude that, when the English Government found it hopeless to refift them, the Irish Proteftants lay at their mercy-that their acknowledged irrefiftibility entitled them to every thing they might wish to demand-that they were de facto, as well as de jure, the Sovereign People— and that the reft of the inhabitants of Ireland were fo far from being entitled to share in the political power of it, that they were bound to do fuit and fervice for their very existence?

ESSAY III.

REMARKS

ON

LORD FITZWILLIAM's STATEMENT

OF

THE DISPOSITIONS OF THE IRISH CATHOLICS,

CONTINUED.

April 30, 1795.

IN a former paper I pointed out the inferences most likely to be drawn by the British Miniftry from Lord Fitzwilliam's ftatement of the temper of the Irish Roman Catholics: and I attempted to prove that the very reasons which he affigned why they fhould be immediately gratified, viz. the irrefiftibility of the general wifh, and the calamities to be apprehended if it was not inftantly complied with, were fufficient, on every ground, except that of conscious weakness, to determine the Cabinet against an acquiefcence in his Lordship's requifition.

To the obfervations which I then offered I apprehend there can be but one poffible objection-that his Lordfhip's expreffions admit of a milder