The Farmer's Case Of The Roman-Catholics Of Ireland.
In a Letter from a Member of the Protestant Church.
Dear Sir,
I think myself indebted to any Occasion that restores you to a Friend, whom I feared you had long forgotten. But I confess, at the same Time, that the Pleasure of hearing from you, after a Silence of Several Years, is, in some Measure, damped by the Censure that seems to constitute the chief Intent of your Letter.
You tell me that you lately happened upon some Papers that were entitled The FARMER's LETTERS, &c. which were imputed to me as the Author. And, after some Compliments on Spirit, and Genius, and so forth, in order to palliate, as I suppose, what you purpose to administer, you charge me, by Implication, with Crimes, whose smallest Tendency I should abhor in myself, as in any Man breathing.
You say, favourably enough for your own Disposition, that you have long looked on the Roman-Catholics of these Kingdoms as a discountenanced and pitiable People. That you would choose to allow to others the same Latitude of Conscience that you like for yourself. That it is not a Part of Humanity to break a Reed already bruised. That such a Treatment would be blameable respecting any Individual; how much more so, in Prejudice of a whole People. That those Papers are pointed with a Keenness of Enmity, for which the Talents, which you are pleased to ascribe, cannot sufficiently apologize. And, that you did not think me capable of exasperating Government and Power against a Set of Men who were already under the Displeasure and Depression of the Law.
These, my dear Friend, are home and heavy Accusations, however tempered by Expressions of Kindness and Affection from the Man whom I sincerely love and respect.
But, if I know any-thing of myself, the Quality, called Ill-nature, is not my Characteristic. I would not exchange one Grain of Good-heart for all the Wit of a C----d or Comprehension of a P--tt, independent of their Virtue. And I may say, with great Truth, that an Excess [pg 070] of Humanity hath occasioned all the Misfortunes and Distresses of my Life.
I most solemnly assure you, that when I wrote those Letters I was in perfect Love and Charity with every Roman Catholic in the Kingdom of Ireland. I knew that they were a depressed People. I had long pitied them as such. I was sensible that the Laws, under which they suffered, had been enacted by our Ancestors, when the Impressions of Hostility were fresh and warm, and when Passion, if I may venture to say so, co-operated, in some Measure, with Utility and Reason. I will go a Step further. I thought those Laws not severe enough to suppress them as Enemies, nor yet sufficiently favourable to attach them to us as Friends. They were not so cruel as, wholly, to serve for quelling; and yet they had a Poignancy that might tend to provoke. And all this I imputed to the Resentment that was blended with the Humanity of our Ancestors. Their Humanity left to Papists a Power of hurting, while their Resentment abridged the Inducements that might engage them to serve us.
Believe me, Sir, I never was of a cruel or persecuting Disposition. I was grieved to see the Discouragements under which the Roman Catholics of this Kingdom laboured, but these very Discouragements made me fear them the more.
Previous to the Letters, which you censure so warmly, a dangerous Rebellion had broken out in Scotland, in consequence of a French Invasion, that was headed by a Popish Pretender to the Throne. Be pleased to remember, (if it is not too mortifying a Recollection for a free-born Briton) the Pannic into which all England was [pg 071] struck by a few Scotch Vassals, undisciplined, and unactuated by any Motive of Liberty or Virtue, save the Virtue of being attached to their Laird or their Leader. Millions of English, at that Time, sunk in the Down of a long Peace, and enervated by ministerial Corruption and Venality, feared that a Handful of Highlanders would win their Way to London, and, at one Stroke, put a Period to the boasted Strength and Grandeur of the British Constitution.
I was astonished at the Apprehensions that England was under from so contemptible an Armament. But I deemed the Case of Ireland to be highly alarming. The Roman-Catholics, at that Time, outnumbered us Five to One. They were disarmed, it is true, but I was not equally sure that they had Reason to be reconciled. As they were not admitted to realize their Fortune, it consisted of ready Money, and that gave ready Power. As they were not permitted to purchase, or accept a Tenure of any valuable Length, Loyalty, perhaps, might induce them to fight for their King; but where was the Stake to impel them to fight for a Country in which they had no Inheritance? Without an Interest in Lands, they had little to lose by any Change of Estate. Without a Loan lodged with Government, they had the less to lose by a Change of Constitution.
I cannot conceive how Religion, or mere Difference of Opinion, should prove a real Cause of Quarrel among Men; though it often serves as a Word of War, or a Term whereby to give Notice for Onset. On the contrary, I had observed that wherever People are united by Interest, though of a thousand opposite Sects, Persuasions [pg 072] and Professions, they never fail to join in the Maintenance and Defence of common Rights.
I, therefore, did not fear the Roman Catholics, as having a different Religion, but as having an Interest that was different from the Interest of Protestants. Were they a Compound of all the Follies, Absurdities, and Contradictions that ever were generated by Monster-bearing Superstition, had their Interest bound them to us, I should not have feared their Fealty.
But this was not the Case. The French Invasion of Great Britain was headed by a Person who was, by Birth, Education, Principle, and Interest, an Enemy to the Freedom and Rights of a Constitution that was established on the Dispossession of his Ancestors; and he was, consequently, an Enemy to the general Change of Privilege and Property, that ensued on the said Establishment. The said Change, as we all know, was to the Disadvantage of Roman Catholics. Had the Invader prevailed, a Change would again have ensued, in their Favour. Men naturally with Success to an Event from whence they propose Benefit; and it is as natural for them to act conformable to those Wishes.
Had Roman Catholics been possessed of an unrestrained Property, along with the other Liberties, Blessings, and Enjoyments, which they derived, in common with us, from the Establishment at the Revolution, no spiritual or temporal Power on Earth could have tempted them to permit, much less to wish, a Change of a Constitution whose Equal they could not find upon Earth.
But as this was very far from being the Fact, I feared that Interest might prove an Incentive [pg 073] to Desire; and Desire equally prove an Incentive to Action; and, I am not ashamed to confess, that my Expectations were greatly, though happily, disappointed, by the Steadiness of their peaceful and loyal Demeanour on that trying Occasion.
Believe me, my Friend, at the Time that I wrote those Papers, which have given you so much Offence, I looked upon the Papists of this Kingdom, by the Patronage of France and Spain, by their Numbers, by their Wealth, and by their Union with each other, to be vastly superior to Irish Protestants, in Power; and my Spirit of Opposition rose, in Proportion to my Idea of their Ability. But neither then, before, nor since, did I ever mean to excite any Action, or Intention, against the Weak, or the Oppressed, the Fallen, or the Afflicted.
When Brutus unsheathed the reluctant Sword of Freedom against his Friend, Humanity must suppose that his Heart was wrung with Compunction, while his Country enjoined and impelled the Blow.
But further, Sir, there is a very wide Difference between a Popish Regency and a Popish People. The whole Intent and Virulence, as you call it, of my Papers, is pointed and levelled against the One, but not a Syllable uttered, from End to End, against the Other. A Popish Regency, in Temporals alike as in Spirituals, I held to be, by Principle, an arbitrary and oppressive Government; but I held a Popish People to be, of all People, the most amenable and submissive to Rulers, whatever the Form or Nature of that State may be, under which they shall happen to be subjected. And, on this very Account, I dreaded them the more, should [pg 074] they become passive Instruments in the Hand of a Papal Dictator.
To apply a sure Test to the Propriety, or Impropriety, of my Apprehensions, at the Period when I wrote the Farmer's Letters, let us suppose that no one of the Penal Laws, which were instituted during the Reign of her Majesty Queen Anne, had yet passed into Form, but that Matters had remained in the same Situation, in which the Monarch, of humane, as well as glorious Memory, had left this unhappy People. Well, what would have been the Consequence? Would Papists, in that Case, have been less amenable to the Government, by which they had been favoured, supported, and cherished? Would they have been the forwarder to bring Damage and Destruction on a Country, because their own Interest was connected therewith, and the Fortunes of their Posterity deposited therein? Would they have been the readier to attempt the Overthrow of our beneficent Constitution, because they enjoyed the Privileges and Advantages thereof? No, Sir, no. The Absurdity of the Supposition is inclusive of the Answer. Had this been the Case, the Farmer's Letters would not have existed to have caused the Renewal of our Acquaintance.
I have read and noted many Instances, in free States and Commonwealths, where Liberty, when fermented into Licentiousness, hath occasioned many partial Struggles for Power, many Broils and Factions, and much Disturbance to the Community. But very few are the Instances of the Insurrection of any People, who have not been goaded thereto by Severity and Oppression. The inoffensive Stag grows formidable when at [pg 075] Bay. The Worm turneth not, till it receiveth a Crush.
I forget the Book, though I remember the Passage, where a Prince demanded of his favourite Minister, what he should do with a Number of the Commons and Nobility, whom he had suppressed and taken Captive in the Act of Rebellion? The Minister answered, Put them, and their Adherents, instantly to Death. No, replied the Prince, that were an Act of such Bloodshed and Barbarity, as neither Fear nor Revenge shall persuade me to perpetrate. Then, grant them all free Pardon, rejoined the Minister. How! said the Prince, must Rebellion go altogether unpunished? There is no Medium that can assure your Safety, answered the Minister; you must either pull this Party wholly up by the Root, so as to leave no Fibre from whence future Enmity may grow; or else, you must change that Enmity into Friendship, by binding their Gratitude to your Person and Interest, with the kindliest of all Connections, that of your Goodness and Favour. A partial Punishment will be too little for your Safety; a partial Pardon will not be enough. You must either wholly annihilate their Power, by their Death; or derive Strength to yourself, from that Power, by their Friendship.
By disarming our Enemies, the utmost we can hope, is, to render them impotent. The Diminution of their Power adds nothing to our own. Repentance is never so permanent or sincere, as when preceded by Pardon; and Favour is, as the polar Attraction, to Inclination. Is there a Man whose Love and Gratitude you desire to engage? Common Sense will direct you to do him a Benefit. Would you bind him [pg 076] to your Service with Hoops of Steel? You must make it his Interest, as well as his Duty, to befriend you.
It is, by no means, my Intention to arraign either the Wisdom or good Policy of our Forefathers. But all Men are, in some Degree, fallible, as well in the congregate, as in the individual; and the Shrewd may err as much, by over-reaching their Aim, as the Ignorant, by falling short, or deviating from it.
But, had a hundred Pitts, and a hundred Cecils, composed the Senate of our Ancestors, at the Time that those Penal Laws were enacted; had those Laws been ever so wise and so just, so wholesome and necessary, and well suited to the Season; is that a Reason that they should continue so to the End of Time? In a World where nothing is permanent; where Modes, Manners, Principles, and Practice are at a Flux; where Life is uncertain, and all it contains changeable; Nature and Reason will conform to Situation and Circumstance; and where Causes have ceased, in any Degree, the Consequences ought to cease in the same Proportion.
It is not now with Rome as it was in the Days when Princes held her Steed, and Emperors her Stirrup. The Kings of the Earth have, pretty clearly, resumed her Usurpations and Acquisitions of temporal Dominion. It is not now, as it was when she cried Peace! and it became Peace; or when the Breath of her Mandate kindled the Nations to Battle. Even his Holiness is, now, but a poor limited Prince, pent up within his little Italian Demesne. If some few still acknowledge to hold of his Authority, it is a Homage of Words, and not of Facts; they will not acknowledge to hold of his Power. [pg 077] He is restored to the quiet and unenvied Possession of all the Lordship and Interest he can acquire in Heaven. But the Sceptre, even of his spiritual Dominion upon Earth, is, of late, as I take it, most wonderfully shortened.
Matters are much altered with the ecclesiastical World, even since I wrote the Letters that have roused your Spleen. Whether it be through a Decline of the Romish Religion, in particular; or, possibly, through a Decline of all Religion, in general; the pontifical and episcopal Dictatorship and Authority are wofully fallen, from the Chair of Infallibility, where they had been seated by Opinion. The Sons of the most bigotted Ancestors do now perceive, that Piety and Immorality are not rightly consistent. And even the vulgar and ignorant, among the Roman Laity, would grumble at departing from an Inch of their Property, though the Priest should advise, and the Pope, himself, should enjoin it.
But, Sir, if the Change of Times, and Principles, Situation, and Circumstances; if the Change of every Cause that produced those penal Laws, have not availed for a Change of Consequences; for some Mitigation or Abatement of their Rigour, toward these my unhappy Brethren, the Roman Catholics of Ireland: If no Argument, I say, that is taken from Changes, may avail for the Purpose, I will take one from Permanence and Duration itself, that shall strike Light and Conviction to the Eye of every Beholder; that Power may gainsay, but cannot refute; that Malevolence may dispute, but never can answer.
About six Generations have now passed away, according to the Rates of Purchase and Estimate [pg 078] of the Life of Man, since these People have offended in Word or in Deed. No Riotings have been heard in their Houses, no Complainings in their Streets; they have been silent and harmless as Sheep before their Sheerers. Our Parties, Factions, and Insurrections, as they are merrily stiled in England, have been all among ourselves; this People were neither Actors nor Partakers therein. They have offered themselves to our Fleets, and to our Armies; to tend our Persons, to till our Grounds, to hew our Wood, and to draw our Water. Where we admit them to fight for us, they have ever proved valiant; where we admit them to serve us, they are found loving, observant, and faithful. Temptations have come to their Doors and called them forth; the Contagion of Rebellion hath broken out among their Neighbours; they have yet remained quiet, and continued untainted; still loyal to their Sovereign, amenable to Government, and submissive to Law, through a long and trying Succession of about seventy Years, they have scarce appeared to repine in the midst of their Calamities.
When I look back on the querulous and restless Nature of Man: When I trace the human Propensities through the Records of Ages and Nations: In all the Histories of those States who had least Cause of Complaint: Throughout the Commonwealths of Asia Minor, the Archipelago, the Grecian Continent, Italy, the Islands of the Mediterranean, &c. where the RIGHTS OF NATURE, under Forms of various Institution, were ASSERTED BY LIBERTY AND GUARDED BY LAW: Where the ASSURANCE OF PROPERTY gave most REASON FOR CONTENT: I can find but few [pg 079] Instances of any People who, through such a Length of Time, have continued firm and unshaken, in an uninterrupted Loyalty and Submission to Government.
What then, do we look for further? What Proofs do ye yet require, of Peacefulness and Attachment at the Hands of these our Brethren? Is no Period to be put to their State of Probation? Must they for ever keep out upon Quarantine, without Harbour or Hopes of Rest or Reconciliation? That were hard, indeed.
If it is Revenge that we seek, they have, already, suffered enough, not for their own Faults, but for the Hostility of their Forefathers. If we seek our Safety, alone; let us chace them, at once, from Country and Community; or put an End to our domestic Fears, by giving them Cause to defend us.
Indeed, Sir, neither common Sense, nor Sense of any Kind, can possibly suppose, That Acts of Kindness which have been, from the Beginning of the World, the Cement of Friendship to all other People, should prove the reverse to these People alone.
Had they been to us, as the Swallow, in Autumn, who forsakes all Connections on the Approach of Inclemency, I should never have pleaded for any Confidence in them. But a People, who, through a Winter of seventy Years Continuance, have never failed, or forsaken, or given us Cause of Offence, surely merit some Consideration, some grateful and chearing Ray to warm them to a Sense that Protestants are not, by Choice, of a cruel, unforgiving, and malevolent Nature.
Lastly, Sir, as I know you to be a Gentleman of a communicative Disposition, and that you were, formerly, fond of exhibiting the Sentiments of some of your Friends; should you impart this Letter to any of your popish Acquaintance, I doubt they might be apt to give me more Thanks than I am conscious I deserve. It is, therefore, but commonly honest, to advertise you, and them, that while I write in the Favour of Papists, the Interest of Protestants is never out of my Eye.
When I thought your Favourites most formidable, I shewed I did not fear them; and now, that I think them impotent, let them not think I flatter.
What I have hitherto hinted is but a narrow opening to the Concerns and Interests of an unhappy Country, whereof I have the Misfortune to be a helpless, though loving, Member. To promote the Advantage of Ireland, in any respect, would be, to me, the cardinal Point of the whole Compass of my Ambition; and a subsequent Letter may shew how far my Observations relate to the Decline, or Prosperity, of my Country, whenever you confer the Pleasure of an Answer on,
Dear SIR,
Your truly affectionate, &c.