a Session went over without in effect passing some of them; until they have by degrees grown to be the most considerable head in the Irish Statute Book. At the same time, giving a temporary and occasional mitigation to the severity of some of the harshest of those Laws, they appeared in some sort the protectors of those, whom they were in reality destroying by the establishment of general Constitutions against them. At length, however, the policy of this expedient is worn out; the passions of men are cooled; those Laws begin to disclose themselves, and to produce effects very different from those, which were promised in making them; for crooked counsels are ever unwise; and nothing can be more absurd and dangerous than to tamper with the natural foundations of society, in hopes of keeping it up by certain contrivances.

A LETTER

то

WILLIAM SMITH, ESQ.*

My dear Sir,

OUR Letter is, to myself, infinitely obliging:

You

with regard to you, I can find no fault with it, except that of a tone of humility and disqualification, which neither your rank, nor the place you are in, nor the profession you belong to, nor your very extraordinary learning and talents will, in propriety, demand, or perhaps admit. These dispositions will be still less proper, if you should feel them in the extent your modesty leads you to express them. You have certainly given by far too strong a proof of self-diffidence, by asking the opinion of a man, circumstanced as I am, on the important subject of your Letter. You are far more capable of forming just conceptions upon it than I can be. However, since you are pleased to command me to lay before you my thoughts, ás materials, upon which your better judgment may operate, I shall obey you; and submit them, with great deference, to your melioration or rejection.

* Then a Member of the Irish Parliament; now one of the Barons of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland.

But

But first permit me to put myself in the right. I owe you an answer to your former Letter. It did not desire one; but it deserved it. If not for an answer, it called for an acknowledgment. It was a new favour; and indeed I should be worse than insensible, if I did not consider the honours, you have heaped upon me with no sparing hand, with becoming gratitude. But your Letter arrived to me at a time, when the closing of my long and last business in life, a business extremely complex, and full of difficulties and vexations of all sorts, occupied me, in a manner, which those, who have not seen the interiour as well as exteriour of it, cannot easily imagine. I confess, that in the crisis of that rude conflict, I neglected many things, that well deserved my best attention: none, that deserved it better, or have caused me more regret in the neglect, than your Letter. The instant that business was over, and the House had passed its judgment on the conduct of the Managers, I lost no time to execute what for years I had resolved on: it was to quit my publick station, and to seek that tranquillity in my very advanced age, to which, after a very tempestuous life, I thought myself entitled. But God has thought fit (and I unfeignedly acknowledge his justice) to dispose of things otherwise. So heavy a calamity has fallen upon me, as to disable me for business, and to disqualify me for repose. The existence, I have, I do not know that I can call

1

life. Accordingly I do not meddle with any one
measure of Government, though, for what reasons
I know not, you seem to suppose me deeply in the
secret of affairs. I only know, so far as your side
of the water is concerned, that your présent ex-
cellent Lord Lieutenant (the best man in every
relation, that I have ever been acquainted with)
has perfectly pure intentions with regard to Ireland;
and of course, that he wishes cordially well to those,
who form the great mass of its inhabitants; and
who, as they are well or ill managed, must form
an important part of its strength, or weakness. If
with regard to that great object, he has carried
over any ready-made system, I assure you it is
perfectly unknown to me: I am very much retired
'from the world, and live in much ignorance. This,
I hope, will form my humble apology, if I should err
in the notions I entertain of the question, which is
soon to become the subject of your deliberations. At
the same time accept it as an apology for my neglects.

You need make no apology for your attachment to the religious description you belong to. It proves (as in you it is sincere) your attachment to the great points, in which the leading divisions are agreed, when the lesser, in which they differ, are so dear to you. I shall never call any religious opinions, which appear important to serious and pious minds, things of no consideration. Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference, which is,

2

at

་་ས

The

at least, half infidelity. As long as men hold charity and justice to be essential integral parts of religion, there can be little danger from a strong attachment to particular tenets in faith. This I am perfectly sure is your case; but I am not equally sure, that either zeal for the tenets of faith, or the smallest degree of charity or justice, have much influenced the gentlemen, who, under pretexts of zeal, have resisted the enfranchisement of their Country. My dear Son, who was a person of discernment, as well as clear and acute in his expressions, said in a Letter of his, which I have seen, "that in order to grace their cause, and to draw some respect to their persons, they pretend to be bigots." But here I take it we have not much to do with the theological tenets, on the one side of the question or the other. The point itself is practically decided. That religion is owned by the State. Except in a settled maintenance, it is protected. A great deal of the rubbish, which, as a nuisance, long obstructed the way, is removed. One impediment remained longer, as a matter to justify the proscription of the body of our Country, after the rest had been abandoned as untenable ground. But the business of the Pope (that mixed person of politicks and religion) has long ceased to be a bugbear for some time past he has ceased to be even a colourable pretext. This was well known, when the Catholicks of these Kingdoms, for our amusement,

papists of beeland do not consider the pope as be such insignificant person, with them he is en thing. _ witness their conduct on

the veto.