me by the text. Should your Lordship think that these pages are not unworthy of following the route of the preceding communications, they are equally at your Lordship's service. I have said there is no fact or assertion precipitately hazarded; and the documents in proof are ever open to your Lordship's examination.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

J. C. HIPPISLEY.

PS. Perhaps it might be as well to require the returns to be made of the number of Catholic Priests, with the distinction of Regular or Secular, &c., before the requisition is suggested of leaving out the Regulars in the recommendation to the Pope for vacant Catholic Prelacies: the latter measure will seem then to originate from the first return itself, in which the numbers of regulars and their employment will appear.

Extract from Mr. Burke's Letter to Dr. Hussey.

Beconsfield, May 18, 1795.

I do not like the style of the meeting in Francis Street; the tone was wholly Jacobinical. In Parliament, the language of your friends (one only excepted) was what it ought to be; but that one speech, though full of fire and animation, was not warmed with the fire of Heaven. He is certainly a man of parts, but one who has dealt too much in the philosophy of France. Justice, prudence, tenderness, moderation, and Christian charity, ought to become the measures of tolerance, and not a cold apathy, or, indeed, rather a savage hatred, to all religion, and an avowed contempt of all those points on which we differ, and on those about which we disagree. [Mr. Burke allows that many provoking circumstances attended the business, but that the Catholics ought not to be irritated out of their principles and out of their good sense.] The language of the day, [he says] went plainly to a separation of the two kingdoms. God forbid that any thing like it should ever happen! They would both be ruined by it, but Ireland

would suffer most and first. The thing, however, is impossible. It is a foolish language, adopted from the United Irishmen, that their grievances originate from England. The direct contrary. It is an ascendency which some of their own factions have obtained here that has hurt the Catholics with this Government. It is not as an English Government that Ministers act in that manner, but as assisting a party in Ireland. When they talk of dissolving themselves as a Catholic body, and mixing their grievances with those of their country, all I have to say is, that they lose their own importance as a body by this amalgamation; and they sink real matters of complaint in those which are factious and imaginary; for, in the name of God! what grievance has Ireland, as Ireland, to complain of with regard to Great Britain?-unless the protection of the most powerful country upon earth, giving all her privileges, without exception, in common to Ireland, and reserving to herself only the painful pre-eminence of tenfold burdens, be a matter of complaint? The subject, as a subject, is as free in Ireland as he is in England: as a member of the empire, an Irishman has every privilege of a natural born Englishman, in every part of it, in every occupation, and in every branch of commerce. monopoly is established against him any where; and the great staple manufacture of Ireland is not only not prohibited, not only not discouraged, but it is privileged in a manner that has no example. The provision trade is the same, nor does Ireland, on her part, take a single article from England but what she has with more advantage than she could have it from any nation upon earth. I say nothing of the immense advantage she derives from the use of English capital. In what country upon earth is it that a quantity of her linens, the moment they are lodged in the warehouse, and before the sale, would entitle the Irish merchant or manufacturer to draw bills on the terms, and at the time, in which this is done by the warehouseman in London? Ireland, therefore, as Ireland, whether it be taken

No

civilly, constitutionally, or commercially, suffers no grievance. The Catholics, as Catholics, do and what can be got by joining their real complaint to a complaint which is fictitious, but to make the whole pass for fiction and groundless pretence? I am not a man for construing, with too much rigour, the expressions of men under a sense of ill usage. I know that much is to be given to passion, and I hope I am more disposed to accuse the person who provokes another to anger than the person who gives way to natural feelings in hot language. If this be all, it is no great matter; but, if anger only brings out a plan that was before meditated and laid up in the mind, the thing is more serious. The tenour of the speeches in Francis Street, attacking the idea of an incorporating Union between the two kingdoms, expressed principles that went the full length of a separation and of a dissolution of that Union, which arises from their being under the same crown. That Ireland would, in that case, come to make a figure amongst the nations, is an idea which has more of the ambition of individuals in it than of a sober regard to the happiness of a whole people.

But, if a people were to sacrifice solid quiet to empty glory, as, on some occasions, they have done under the circumstances of Ireland, she, most assuredly, never would obtain that independent glory; but would certainly lose all her tranquillity, all her prosperity, and even that degree of lustre which she has by the very free and very honourable connexion she enjoys with a nation the most splendid and the most powerful upon earth. Ireland, constitutionally, is independent; politically, she never can be so. It is a struggle against nature. She must be protected, and there is no protection to be found for her, but either from France or England. France, even if (under any form she may assume) she were disposed to give the same liberal and honourable protection to Ireland, has not the means of either serving or hurting her that are in the hands of Great Britain. She might make Ireland, supposing

that kind of independence could be maintained (which, for a year, I am certain it could not) a dreadful thorn in the side of this kingdom; but Ireland would dearly buy that malignant and infernal satisfaction by a dependence upon a power, either despotic as formerly, or anarchical as at present. We see well enough the kind of liberty which she either enjoys herself, or is willing to bestow on others. This I say with regard to the scheme of those who call themselves United Irishmen, that is to say, of those who, without any regard to religion, club all kinds of discontents together, in order to produce all kinds of disorders. But, to speak to Catholics as such, it is plain that, whatever security they enjoy for their religion, as well as for the many solid advantages which, even under the present restrictions, they are entitled to, depends wholly upon their connexion with this kingdom. France is an enemy to all religion, but eminently, and with a peculiar malignity, an enemy to the Catholic religion, which they mean, if they can, to extirpate throughout the globe. It is something perverse, and even unnatural, for Catholics to hear even the sound of a connexion with France, unless, under the colour and pretext of a religious description, they should, as some have done in this country, form themselves into a mischievous political faction.

The Catholics, as things now stand, have all the splendid abilities and much of the independent property in Parliament in their favour, and every Protestant (I believe, with very few exceptions) who is really a Christian. Should they alienate those men from their cause, their choice is amongst those who, indeed, may have abilities, but not wisdom or temper in proportion, and whose very ability is not equal either in strength or exercise to that which they lose. They will have to choose men of desperate property and of no property, and men of no religions and no moral principle. Without a Protestant connexion, of some kind or other, they cannot go on; and here are the two sorts of descriptions of Protestants,

between whom they have an option to make. In this state of things, their situation, I allow, is difficult and delicate. If the better part lies by in a sullen silence, they still cannot hinder the more factious part both from speaking and from writing; and the sentiments of those who are silent will be judged by the effusions of the people who do not wish to conceal thoughts, that the sober part of mankind will not approve. On the other hand, if the better and more temperate part come forward to disclaim the others, they instantly make a breach in their own party, of which a malignant enemy will take advantage to crush them all. They will praise the sober part, but they will grant them nothing they shall desire; nay, they will make use of their submission as a proof that sober men are perfectly satisfied in remaining prostrate under their oppressive hands. These are dreadful dilemmas; and they are such as ever will arise when men in power are possessed with a crafty, malignant disposition, without any real wisdom or enlarged policy.

However, as in every case of difficulty, there is a better way of proceeding and a worse, so some medium may be found between an object, and, for that reason, an imprudent submission, and a contumacious, absurd resistance. What I would humbly suggest is, that on occasion of the declamations in the newspapers, they should make, not an apology (for that is dishonourable and dangerous), but a strong charge on their enemies for defamation, disclaiming the tenets, and practices, and designs, imprudently attributed to them, and asserting in cool, modest, and determined language, their resolution to assert the privileges to which, as good citizens and good subjects, they hold themselves entitled, without being intimidated or wearied out by the opposition of the monopolists of the kingdom. In this there will be nothing mean, or servile, or which can carry any appearance of the effect of fear, but the contrary. At the same time, it will remove the prejudices which, on this side of the water as well