till those Jacobin lectures were opened in the House of Commons, they never dreamt of any such thing; but now, the great professors may stimulate them to inquire (on the new principles) into the foundation of that property, and of all property. If you treat men as robbers, why robbers, sooner or later, they will become.

A third point of Jacobin attack is on old traditionary Constitutions. You are apprehensive for yours, which leans from its perpendicular, and does not stand firm on its theory. I like Parliamentary reforms as little as any man, who has boroughs to sell for money, or for Peerages, in Ireland. But it passes my comprehension, in what manner it is, that men can be reconciled to the practical merits of a Constitution, the theory of which is in litigation, by being practically excluded from any of its advantages. Let us put ourselves in the place of these people, and try an experiment of the effects of such a procedure on our own minds. Unquestionably we should be perfectly satisfied when we were told, that Houses of Parliament, instead of being places of refuge for popular liberty, were citadels for keeping us in order as a conquered people. These things play the Jacobin game to a nicety. Indeed, my dear Sir, there is not a single particular in the Francis-street declamations, which has not, to your and to my certain knowledge, been taught by the jealous ascendants, sometimes by doctrine, sometimes by example, always by provo

cation.

cation. Remember the whole of 1781, and 1782 -in Parliament and out of Parliament at this very day, and in the worst acts and designs, observe the tenour of the objections, with which the College-green orators of the ascendency reproach the Catholicks. You have observed, no doubt, how

much they rely on the affair of Jackson. Is it. Not quite not pleasant to hear Catholicks reproached for a laughable supposed connexion-with whom?-with Protest-hen the ant Clergymen, with Protestant Gentlemen! with

fact mar. Mr. Jackson!-with Mr. Rowan, &c. &c.! But was unquies. egomet mi ignosco. Conspiracies and treasons are ionable privileged pleasures, not to be profaned by the impure and unhallowed touch of Papists. Indeed all this will do, perhaps, well enough with detachments of dismounted Cavalry and Fencibles from England. But let us not say to Catholicks, by way of

argument, that they are to be kept in a degraded

state, because some of them are no better than all would many of us Protestants. The thing I most disliked a been in some of their speeches (those I mean of the mean to the Catholicks) was what is called the spirit of liberality,

so much and so diligently taught by the ascendants, by which they are made to abandon their own particular interests, and to merge them in the general discontents of the Country. It gave me no pleasure to hear of the dissolution of the Committee. There were in it a majority, to my knowledge, of very sober well-intentioned men; and there were none in it, but such, who, if not continually goaded

th

and irritated, might be made useful to the tranquillity of the Country. It is right always to have a few of every description, through whom you may quietly operate on the many, both for the interests of the description, and for the general interest. Excuse me, my dear friend, if I have a little tried your patience. You have brought this trouble on yourself by your thinking of a man forgot, and who has no objection to be forgot, by the world. These things we discussed together four or five and thirty years ago. We were then, and at bottom ever since, of the same opinion on the justice and policy of the whole, and of every part of the penal system. You and I, and every body, must now and then ply and bend to the occasion, and take what can be got. But very sure I am, that whilst there remains in the Law any principle whatever, which can furnish to certain politicians an excuse for raising an opinion of their own importance, as necessary to keep their fellow subjects in order, the obnoxious people will be fretted, harassed, insulted, provoked to discontent and disorder, and practically excluded from the partial advantages, from which the letter of the Law does not exclude them.

Adieu! my dear Sir, and believe me very truly

Beaconsfield,

May 26, 1795

Your's, EDMUND BURKE.

LETTER ·

TO

RICHARD BURKE, ESQ.

My dear Son,

E are all again assembled in Town, to finish

WE

You

the last, but the most laborious, of the tasks, which have been imposed upon me during my Parliamentary service. We are as well as, at our time of life, we can expect to be. We have indeed some moments of anxiety about you. are engaged in an undertaking similar in its principle to mine. You are engaged in the relief of an oppressed people. In that service you must necessarily excite the same sort of passions in those, who have exercised, and who wish to continue that oppression, that I have had to struggle with in this long labour. As your Father has done, you must make enemies of many of the rich, of the proud, and of the powerful. I and you began in the same way. I must confess, that, if our place was of our choice, I could wish it had been your lot to begin the career of your life with an endeavour to render some more moderate, and less invidious, service to the Publick. But being engaged in a great and critical work, I have not the least hesitation

EE 3

What devil drove the booby to Ireland or his pestilent mission of promoting the interests of diabolic popery?

tation about your having hitherto done your duty as becomes you. If I had not an assurance not to be shaken from the character of your mind, I should be satisfied on that point by the cry, that is raised against you. If you had behaved, as they call it, discreetly, that is, faintly and treacherously in the execution of your trust, you would have had, for a while, the good word of all sorts of men, even of many of those, whose cause you had betrayed; and whilst your favour lasted, you might have coined that false reputation into a true and solid interest to yourself. This you are well apprized of; and you do not refuse to travel that beaten road from an ignorance, but from a contempt, of the objects it leads to.

When you choose an arduous and slippery path, God forbid that any weak feelings of my declining age, which calls for soothings and supports, and which can have none but from you, should make me wish that you should abandon what you are about, or should trifle with it. In this House we submit, though with troubled minds, to that order, which has connected all great duties with toils and with perils, which has conducted the road to glory through the regions of obloquy and reproach, and which will never suffer the disparaging alliance of spurious, false, and fugitive praise with genuine and permanent reputation. We know, that the Power, which has settled that order, and subjected

you