Abraham's next argument against a policy of concession is that it would only lead to further demands in the future. In reply to this Peter makes vigorous use of Spencer Perceval's official career. Perceval had held a sinecure for several years; at the time of writing he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he had just attempted, and been defeated in attempting, a most nefarious job, by which the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster were to have been secured to him for life.
"Suppose the person to whom he applied for the Meltings had withstood every plea of wife and fourteen children, no business, and good character, and had refused him this paltry little office, because he might hereafter attempt to get hold of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster for life; would not Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the injustice of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones may hereafter be made? Would he not have said (and said truly), 'Leave such exorbitant attempts as these to the general indignation of the Commons, who will take care to defeat them when they do occur; but do not refuse me the Irons and the Meltings now, because I may totally lose sight of all moderation hereafter'?"
Letter IV. begins with a reply to those who contended that England ought not to pay for the education of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland.
"The whole sum now appropriated by Government to the religious education of four millions of Christians is £13,000—a sum about one hundred times as large being appropriated in the same country to about one-eighth part of this number of Protestants. When it was proposed to raise this grant from £8000 to £13,000, its present amount, this sum was objected to by that most indulgent of Christians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, as enormous; he himself having secured for his own eating and drinking, and the eating and drinking of the Master and Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of £21,000 a year of the public money,[48] and having just failed in a desperate and rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; and the best of it is, that this Minister, after abusing his predecessors for their impious bounty to the Catholics, has found himself compelled, from the apprehension of immediate danger, to grant the sum in question."
Abraham now goes on to plead that our present relations with the Roman Catholics date from the Revolution of 1688, and that laws passed at that period are unalterable. To this Peter replies:—
"When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool…. Besides, it happens that, to the principal incapacities under which the Irish suffer, they were subjected after that great and glorious Revolution, to which we are indebted for so many blessings…. The Catholics were not excluded from the Irish House of Commons, or military commands, before the 3rd and 4th of William and Mary, and the 1st and 2nd of Queen Anne."
Then he goes on to cite the example of Scotland. There the English government had, in times past, tried to force the national conscience in matters of faith and worship. The government had failed, as it deserved to fail, for Scotland was resolute and rebellious. Then "the true and only remedy was applied. The Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, and privation." And Scotland had become a contented, loyal, and profitable part of the United Kingdom. Exactly the reverse was happening in Ireland. A vehement hostility to the Union was spreading through all parts of the country and all classes of the people.
"The Irish see that their national independence is gone, without having recovered any single one of those advantages which they were taught to expect from the sacrifice. All good things were to flow from the Union; they have none of them gained anything. Every man's pride is wounded by it; no man's interest is promoted. In the seventh year of that Union, four million Catholics, lured by all kinds of promises to yield up the separate dignity and sovereignty of their country, are forced to squabble with such a man as Mr. Spencer Perceval for five thousand pounds with which to educate their children in their own mode of worship; he, the same Mr. Spencer, having secured to his own Protestant self a reversionary portion of the public money amounting to four times that sum…. Our conduct to Ireland, during the whole of this war, has been that of a man who subscribes to hospitals, weeps at charity-sermons, carries out broth and blankets to beggars, and then comes home and beats his wife and children. We have compassion for the victims of all other oppression and injustice, except our own."
It is of no use for statesmen to ignore the Irish question. It is much too urgent and too dangerous a topic to be long suppressed.—
"A man may command his family to say nothing more about the stone, and surgical operations; but the ponderous malice still lies upon the nerve, and gets so big that the patient breaks his own law of silence, clamours for the knife, and expires under its late operation. Believe me, you talk folly when you speak of suppressing the Irish question. I wish to God that the case admitted of such a remedy … but, if the wants of the Catholics are not heard in the manly tones of Lord Grenville, or the servile drawl of Lord Castlereagh, they will be heard ere long in the madness of mobs, and the conflicts of armed men."