But why all this concern for the poor? We want them not, as the country is now managed; they may follow thousands of their leaders, and seek their bread abroad. Where the plough has no work, one family can do the business of fifty, and you may send away the other forty-nine. An admirable piece of husbandry, never known or practised by the wisest nations, who erroneously thought people to be the riches of a country!
If so wretched a state of things would allow it, methinks I could have a malicious pleasure, after all the warning I have in vain given the public, at my own peril, for several years past, to see the consequences and events answering in every particular. I pretend to no sagacity: what I writ was little more than what I had discoursed to several persons, who were generally of my opinion; and it was obvious to every common understanding, that such effects must needs follow from such causes;—a fair issue of things begun upon party rage, while some sacrificed the public to fury, and others to ambition: while a spirit of faction and oppression reigned in every part of the country, where gentlemen, instead of consulting the ease of their tenants, or cultivating their lands, were worrying one another upon points of Whig and Tory, of High Church and Low Church; which no more concerned them than the long and famous controversy of strops for razors: while agriculture was wholly discouraged, and consequently half the farmers and labourers, and poorer tradesmen, forced to beggary or banishment. "Wisdom crieth in the streets: Because I have called on ye; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsels, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh."
I have now done with your Memorial, and freely excuse your mistakes, since you appear to write as a stranger, and as of a country which is left at liberty to enjoy the benefits of nature, and to make the best of those advantages which God hath given it, in soil, climate, and situation.
But having lately sent out a paper, entitled, A Short View of the State of Ireland; and hearing of an objection, that some people think I have treated the memory of the late Lord Chief Justice Whitshed with an appearance of severity; since I may not probably have another opportunity of explaining myself in that particular, I choose to do it here. Laying it, therefore, down for a postulatum, which I suppose will be universally granted, that no little creature of so mean a birth and genius, had ever the honour to be a greater enemy to his country, and to all kinds of virtue, than HE, I answer thus; Whether there be two different goddesses called Fame, as some authors contend, or only one goddess sounding two different trumpets, it is certain that people distinguished for their villainy have as good a title for a blast from the proper trumpet, as those who are most renowned for their virtues have from the other; and have equal reason to complain if it be refused them. And accordingly the names of the most celebrated profligates have been faithfully transmitted down to posterity. And although the person here understood acted his part in an obscure corner of the world, yet his talents might have shone with lustre enough in the noblest scene.
As to my naming a person dead, the plain honest reason is the best. He was armed with power, guilt, and will to do mischief, even where he was not provoked, as appeared by his prosecuting two printers,[85] one to death, and both to ruin, who had neither offended God nor the King, nor him nor the public.
What an encouragement to vice is this! If an ill man be alive, and in power, we dare not attack him; and if he be weary of the world, or of his own villainies, he has nothing to do but die, and then his reputation is safe. For these excellent casuists know just Latin enough to have heard a most foolish precept, that de mortuis nil nisi bonum; so that if Socrates, and Anytus his accuser, had happened to die together, the charity of survivors must either have obliged them to hold their peace, or to fix the same character on both. The only crime of charging the dead is, when the least doubt remains whether the accusation be true; but when men are openly abandoned, and lost to all shame, they have no reason to think it hard if their memory be reproached. Whoever reports, or otherwise publisheth, any thing which it is possible may be false, that man is a slanderer; hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto. Even the least misrepresentation, or aggravation of facts, deserves the same censure, in some degree, but in this case, I am quite deceived if my error hath not been on the side of extenuation.
I have now present before me the idea of some persons (I know not in what part of the world) who spend every moment of their lives, and every turn of their thoughts, while they are awake, (and probably of their dreams while they sleep,) in the most detestable actions and designs; who delight in mischief, scandal, and obloquy, with the hatred and contempt of all mankind against them, but chiefly of those among their own party and their own family; such whose odious qualities rival each other for perfection: avarice, brutality, faction, pride, malice, treachery, noise, impudence, dullness, ignorance, vanity, and revenge, contending every moment for superiority in their breasts. Such creatures are not to be reformed, neither is it prudence or safety to attempt a reformation. Yet, although their memories will rot, there may be some benefit for their survivors to smell it while it is rotting.
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
A. B.