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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12)




You are well aware, that, when a man renounces the Roman religion,
there is no civil inconvenience or incapacity whatsoever which shall
hinder him from joining any new or old sect of Dissenters, or of forming
a sect of his own invention upon the most anti-christian principles. Let
Mr. Thomas Paine obtain a pardon, (as on change of ministry he may,)
there is nothing to hinder him from setting up a church of his own in
the very midst of you. He is a natural-born British subject. His French
citizenship does not disqualify him, at least upon a peace. This
Protestant apostle is as much above all suspicion of Popery as the
greatest and most zealous of your sanhedrim in Ireland can possibly be.
On purchasing a qualification, (which his friends of the Directory are
not so poor as to be unable to effect,) he may sit in Parliament; and
there is no doubt that there is not one of your tests against Popery
that he will not take as fairly, and as much _ex animo_, as the best of
your zealot statesmen. I push this point no further, and only adduce
this example (a pretty strong one, and fully in point) to show what I
take to be the madness and folly of driving men, under the existing
circumstances, from any _positive_ religion whatever into the irreligion
of the times, and its sure concomitant principles of anarchy.

When religion is brought into a question of civil and political
arrangement, it must be considered more politically than theologically,
at least by us, who are nothing more than mere laymen. In that light,
the case of the Catholics of Ireland is peculiarly hard, whether they be
laity or clergy. If any of them take part, like the gentleman you
mention, with some of the most accredited Protestants of the country, in
projects which cannot be more abhorrent to your nature and disposition
than they are to mine,--in that case, however few these Catholic
factions who are united with factious Protestants may be, (and very few
they are now, whatever shortly they may become,) on their account the
whole body is considered as of suspected fidelity to the crown, and as
wholly undeserving of its favor. But if, on the contrary, in those
districts of the kingdom where their numbers are the greatest, where
they make, in a manner, the whole body of the people, (as, out of
cities, in three fourths of the kingdom they do,) these Catholics show
every mark of loyalty and zeal in support of the government, which at
best looks on them with an evil eye, then their very loyalty is turned
against their claims. They are represented as a contented and happy
people, and that it is unnecessary to do anything more in their favor.
Thus the factious disposition of a few among the Catholics and the
loyalty of the whole mass are equally assigned as reasons for not
putting them on a par with those Protestants who are asserted by the
government itself, which frowns upon Papists, to be in a state of
nothing short of actual rebellion, and in a strong disposition to make
common cause with the worst foreign enemy that these countries have ever
had to deal with. What in the end can come of all this?

As to the Irish Catholic clergy, their condition is likewise most
critical. If they endeavor by their influence to keep a dissatisfied
laity in quiet, they are in danger of losing the little credit they
possess, by being considered as the instruments of a government adverse
to the civil interests of their flock. If they let things take their
course, they will be represented as colluding with sedition, or at least
tacitly encouraging it. If they remonstrate against persecution, they
propagate rebellion. Whilst government publicly avows hostility to that
people, as a part of a regular system, there is no road they can take
which does not lead to their ruin.

If nothing can be done on your side of the water, I promise you that
nothing will be done here. Whether in reality or only in appearance I
cannot positively determine, but you will be left to yourselves by the
ruling powers here. It is thus ostensibly and above-board; and in part,
I believe, the disposition is real. As to the people at large in this
country, I am sure they have no disposition to intermeddle in your
affairs. They mean you no ill whatever; and they are too ignorant of the
state of your affairs to be able to do you any good. Whatever opinion
they have on your subject is very faint and indistinct; and if there is
anything like a formed notion, even that amounts to no more than a sort
of humming that remains on their ears of the burden of the old song
about Popery. Poor souls, they are to be pitied, who think of nothing
but dangers long passed by, and but little of the perils that actually
surround them.

* * * * *

I have been long, but it is almost a necessary consequence of dictating,
and that by snatches, as a relief from pain gives me the means of
expressing my sentiments. They can have little weight, as coming from
me; and I have not power enough of mind or body to bring them out with
their natural force. But I do not wish to have it concealed that I am of
the same opinion, to my last breath, which I entertained when my
faculties were at the best; and I have not held back from men in power
in this kingdom, to whom I have very good wishes, any part of my
sentiments on this melancholy subject, so long as I had means of access
to persons of their consideration.

I have the honor to be, &c.




END OF VOL. VI.

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