An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland

by Henry Brooke

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.