In Letter V. Peter turns upon Abraham, who cannot believe that England will ever be ruined and conquered, and says:—
"Alas! so reasoned, in their time, the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian Plymleys. But the English are brave? So were all these nations. You might get together an hundred thousand men individually brave; but, without generals capable of commanding such a machine, it would be as useless as a first-rate man-of-war manned by Oxford clergymen or Parisian shopkeepers. I do not say this to the disparagement of English officers: they have had no means of acquiring experience. But I do say it to create alarm. We do not appear to me to be half alarmed enough, or to entertain that sense of our danger which leads to the most obvious means of self-defence. As for the spirit of the peasantry, in making a gallant defence behind hedgerows and through plate-racks and hencoops, highly as I think of their bravery, I do not know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic as the English; and this from their total unacquaintance with the science of war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles round—cart-mares shot—sows of Lord Somerville's[49] breed running wild over the country—the minister of the parish wounded sorely in his hinder parts—Mrs. Plymley in fits—all these scenes of war an Austrian or a Russian has seen three or four times over. But it is now three centuries since an English pig has fallen in fair battle upon English ground, or a farm-house been rifled…. But whatever was our conduct—if every ploughman was as great a hero as he who was called from his oxen to save Rome from her enemies—I should still say that, at such a crisis, you want the affections of all your subjects in both islands. There is no spirit which you must alienate, no heart you must avert. Every man must feel he has a country, and that there is an urgent and pressing cause why he should expose himself to death."
Although Peter is so seriously concerned about the military disasters which will fall on England unless she behaves more wisely to her Roman Catholic population, he is not the least afraid of any dangers arising from the Roman Catholic religion. England has done with it, once for all—
"Tell me that the world will return again under the influence of the smallpox; that Lord Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power of the court; that Lord Howick and Mr. Grattan will each of them do a mean and dishonourable action; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale speak will knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has assented to the fact of two and two making four, without shedding tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other thing absurd or incredible, but, for the love of common sense, let me hear no more of the danger to be apprehended from the general diffusion of Popery. It is too absurd to be reasoned upon; every man feels it is nonsense when he hears it stated, and so does every man while he is stating it."
No, the only real danger which Peter sees—and this he sees with startling clearness—is that Ireland will be absorbed by France, and will welcome her deliverance from England; that the civil existence of England will be most seriously imperilled; and that the Irish themselves will, in the long-run, suffer grievously by the change,—
"Who can doubt but that Ireland will experience ultimately from France a treatment to which the conduct they have experienced from England is the love of a parent or a brother? Who can doubt that, five years after he has got hold of the country, Ireland will be tossed by Bonaparte as a present to some one of his ruffian generals, who will knock the head of Mr. Keogh against the head of Cardinal Troy, shoot twenty of the most noisy blockheads of the Roman persuasion, wash his pug-dogs in holy water, and confiscate the salt butter of the Milesian Republic to the last tub? But what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to heed it? or when had common sense much influence with my poor dear Irish? Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I know them, and I know that, at every rash and mad hazard, they will break the Union, revenge their wounded pride and their insulted religion, and fling themselves into the open arms of France, sure of dying in the embrace…. In the six hundredth year of our Empire over Ireland, have we any memorial of ancient kindness to refer to? any people, any zeal, any country, on which we can depend? Have we any hope, but in the winds of heaven and the tides of the sea? any prayer to prefer to the Irish, but that they should forget and forgive their oppressors, who, in the very moment that they are calling upon them for their exertions, solemnly assure them that the oppression shall still remain?"
Letter VI. begins with one of those vivacious apologues in which Sydney Smith excelled. Abraham Plymley has been talking of the concessions which Roman Catholics hare already received, and their shameless ingratitude in asking for more. To the cry of ingratitude Peter thus replies.—There is a village, he says, in which, once a year, the inhabitants sit down to a dinner provided at the common expense. A hundred years ago the inhabitants of three of the streets seized the inhabitants of the fourth street, bound them hand and foot, laid them on their backs, and compelled them to look on while the majority were stuffing themselves with beef and beer—and this, although they had contributed an equal quota to the expense. Next year the same assault was perpetrated. It soon grew into a custom; and, as years went on, the village came to look on the annual act of tyranny as the most sacred of its institutions. Unfortunately, however, for the tyrannical majority, the inhabitants of the persecuted street increased in numbers, determination, and public spirit. They murmured, protested, and resisted, till the oppressors, "more afraid of injustice, were now disposed to be just." On the next occasion of the annual dinner, the victims were unbound. The year after, they were allowed to sit upright. Then they got a bit of bread and a glass of water. Finally, after a long series of small concessions, they grew so bold as to ask that they might sit down at the bottom of the table, and feast with their grander neighbours. Forthwith, a general cry of shame and scandal.—
"Ten years ago, were you not laid upon your backs? Don't you remember what a great thing you thought it to get a piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese-parings? Have you forgotten that memorable æra, when the lord of the manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding? And now, with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you have the impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest, and be indulged even with beef and beer. There are not more than half a dozen dishes which we have reserved for ourselves; the rest has been thrown open to you in the utmost profusion; you have potatoes, and carrots, suet dumplings, sops in the pan, and delicious toast-and-water, in incredible quantities. Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are ours; and, if you were not the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would never think of aspiring to enjoy them."
Is not this, says Peter, the very nonsense and the very insult which you daily practise on the Roman Catholics? I, though I am an inhabitant of the village and live in one of the three favoured streets, have retained some sense of justice, and I most earnestly counsel these half-fed claimants to persevere in their just demands, till they are admitted to their just share of a dinner for which they pay as much as the others.
"And, if they see a little attenuated lawyer[50] squabbling at the head of their opponents, let them desire him to empty his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and pudding which he has filched from the public feasts, to carry home to his wife and children."