LETTER.[23]
My Dear sir,—Your letter is, to myself, infinitely obliging: 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, as materials upon which your better judgment may operate, I shall obey you, and submit them, with great deference, to your melioration or rejection.
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 favor; and, indeed, I should be worse than insensible, if I did not consider the honors 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 interior as well as exterior 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 public 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 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 present excellent 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, 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 polities and religion) has long ceased to be a bugbear: for some time past he has ceased to be even a colorable pretext. This was well known, when the Catholics of these kingdoms, for our amusement, were obliged on oath to disclaim him in his political capacity,—which implied an allowance for them to recognize him in some sort of ecclesiastical superiority. It was a compromise of the old dispute.
For my part, I confess I wish that we had been less eager in this point. I don't think, indeed, that much mischief will happen from it, if things are otherwise properly managed. Too nice an inquisition ought not to be made into opinions that are dying away of themselves. Had we lived an hundred and fifty years ago, I should have been as earnest and anxious as anybody for this sort of abjuration; but, living at the time in which I live, and obliged to speculate forward instead of backward, I must fairly say, I could well endure the existence of every sort of collateral aid which opinion might, in the now state of things, afford to authority. I must see much more danger than in my life I have seen, or than others will venture seriously to affirm that they see, in the Pope aforesaid, (though a foreign power, and with his long tail of et ceteras,) before I should be active in weakening any hold which government might think it prudent to resort to, in the management of that large part of the king's subjects. I do not choose to direct all my precautions to the part where the danger does not press, and to leave myself open and unguarded where I am not only really, but visibly attacked.
My whole politics, at present, centre in one point, and to this the merit or demerit of every measure (with me) is referable,—that is, what will most promote or depress the cause of Jacobinism. What is Jacobinism? It is an attempt (hitherto but too successful) to eradicate prejudice out of the minds of men, for the purpose of putting all power and authority into the hands of the persons capable of occasionally enlightening the minds of the people. For this purpose the Jacobins have resolved to destroy the whole frame and fabric of the old societies of the world, and to regenerate them after their fashion. To obtain an army for this purpose, they everywhere engage the poor by holding out to them as a bribe the spoils of the rich. This I take to be a fair description of the principles and leading maxims of the enlightened of our day who are commonly called Jacobins.
As the grand prejudice, and that which holds all the other prejudices together, the first, last, and middle object of their hostility is religion. With that they are at inexpiable war. They make no distinction of sects. A Christian, as such, is to them an enemy. What, then, is left to a real Christian, (Christian as a believer and as a statesman,) but to make a league between all the grand divisions of that name, to protect and to cherish them all, and by no means to proscribe in any manner, more or less, any member of our common party? The divisions which formerly prevailed in the Church, with all their overdone zeal, only purified and ventilated our common faith, because there was no common enemy arrayed and embattled to take advantage of their dissensions; but now nothing but inevitable ruin will be the consequence of our quarrels. I think we may dispute, rail, persecute, and provoke the Catholics out of their prejudices; but it is not in ours they will take refuge. If anything is, one more than another, out of the power of man, it is to create a prejudice. Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman, but he cannot make a gentleman.