“My dear Grattan,
“I regret your not receiving my letter, in reply to yours, written immediately after the lamented departure of my honoured friend. In that letter I proposed forthwith to publish the sequel of my character of Mr. Grattan, accompanied with his portrait and some additional observations. I had composed the sequel, much to my own satisfaction, as the continuation of his character promised in the number of my historical work where I say ‘his career is not yet finished.’
“Your last letter did not reach me for five months, and having received no reply to mine, I threw the manuscript into the fire, keeping no copy; it was scarcely consumed, however, before I repented the having done so.
“But now permit an old and sensitive friend to expostulate a little with you, in the simple garb of queries:—
“Why, and for what good reason,—with what policy, or on what feeling, are the bones of the most illustrious of Irishmen suffered to moulder in the same ground with his country’s enemies?
“Why suffer him to be escorted to the grave by the mock pageantry of those whose political vices and corruptions ravished from Ireland every thing which his talent and integrity had obtained for her?
“Why send his countrymen on a foreign pilgrimage, to worship the shrine of their canonised benefactor? Were not the cathedrals of Ireland worthy to be honoured by his urn,—or the youths of Erin to be animated by knowing that they possessed his ashes? Can it be gratifying to the feelings of his countrymen to pay the sexton of a British abbey a mercenary shilling for permission even to see the grave-stone of your parent?[[65]]
“You were deceived by the blandishments of our mortal enemy: he knew that political idolatry has great power, and excites great influence in nations. The shrine of a patriot has often proved to be the standard of liberty; and it was therefore good policy in a British statesman to suppress our excitements:—the mausoleum of Rousseau is raised in France—the tradition of Grattan only will remain to his compatriots.
“He lived the life—he died the death—but he does not sleep in the tomb of an Irish patriot! England has taken away our constitution, and even the relics of its founder are retained through the duplicity of his enemy.
“You have now my sentiments on the matter, and by frankly expressing them, I have done my duty to you, to myself, and to my country.