most substantial injuries. To that argument of equal taxation, I can only say,—that Ireland pays as many taxes as those, who are the best judges of her powers, are of opinion she can bear. To bear more, she must have more ability; and, in the order of nature, the advantage must precede the charge. This disposition of things being the law of God, neither you nor I can alter it. So that if you will have more help from Ireland, you must previously supply her with more means. I believe it will be found, that if men are suffered freely to cultivate their natural advantages, a virtual equality of contribution will come in its own time, and will flow by an easy descent through its own proper and natural channels. An attempt to disturb that course, and to force nature, will only bring on universal discontent, distress, and confusion.-Letter to S. Span, Esq. 1778.

RELIGIOUS DISSENSION IN IRELAND.-No country, I believe, since the world began, has suffered so much on account of religion; or has been so variously harassed both for popery and for protestantism.Tracts on the Popery Laws.

LEGISLATION IN IRELAND.-The legislature of Ireland, like all legislatures, ought to frame its laws to suit the people and the circumstances of the country, and not any longer to make it their whole business to force the nature, the temper, and the inveterate habits of a nation to a conformity to speculative systems concerning any kind of laws.-Letter to R. Burke, Esq.

CAUSE OF REBELLIONS IN IRELAND.-It cannot, I confess, be denied, that those miserable performances, which go about under the names of Histories of Ireland, do indeed represent those events after

this manner; and they would persuade us, contrary to the known order of nature, that indulgence and moderation in governors is the natural incitement in subjects to rebel. But there is an interior History of Ireland, the genuine voice of its records and monuments, which speaks a very different language from these histories, from Temple and from Clarendon; these restore nature to its just rights, and policy to its proper order. For they even now shew to those, who have been at the pains to examine them, and they may shew one day to all the world, that these rebellions were not produced by toleration, but by persecution; that they arose not from just and mild government, but from the most unparalleled oppression. These records will be far from giving the least countenance to a doctrine so repugnant to humanity and good sense, as that the security of any establishment, civil or religious, can ever depend upon the misery of those who live under it, or that its danger can arise from their quiet and prosperity. God forbid, that the history of this or any country should give such encouragement to the folly or vices of those who govern. If it can be shewn, that the great rebellions of Ireland have arisen from attempts to reduce the natives to the state, to which they are now reduced, it will shew, that an attempt to continue them in that state will rather be disadvantageous to the public peace, than any kind of security to it. These things have, in some measure, begun to appear already; and as far as regards the argument drawn from former rebellions, it will fall readily to the ground. But, for my part, I think the real danger of every state is, to render its subjects justly discontented; nor is there in politics or

science any more effectual secret for their security, than to establish in their people a firm opinion, that no change can be for their advantage.-Tracts on the Popery Laws.

FALSE NOTIONS RESPECTING IRISH INSURRECTION. -I suppress all, that is in my mind, about the blindness of those of our clergy, who will shut their eyes to a thing, which glares in such manifest day. If some wretches amongst an indigent and disorderly part of the populace raise a riot about tithes, there are of these gentlemen ready to cry out, that this is an overt act of a treasonable conspiracy. Here the bulls, and the pardons, and the crusade, and the pope, and the thunders of the Vatican, are everywhere at work. There is a plot to bring in a foreign power to destroy the church. Alas! it is not about popes, but about potatoes, that the minds of this unhappy people are agitated. It is not from the spirit of zeal, but the spirit of whiskey, that these wretches act. Is it then not conceived possible, that a poor clown can be unwilling, after paying three pounds rent to a gentleman in a brown coat, to pay fourteen shillings to one in a black coat, for his acre of potatoes, and tumultuously to desire some modification of the charge, without being supposed to have no other motive than a frantic zeal for being thus double-taxed to another set of landholders, and another set of priests? Have men no self-interest? no avarice? no repugnance to public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive minds? no undisciplined habits? Is there nothing in the whole mob of irregular passions, which might precipitate some of the common people, in some places, to quarrel with a legal, because they feel it to be a burthensome,

imposition? According to these gentlemen, no offence can be committed by papists but from zeal to their religion. To make room for the vices of papists, they clear the house of all the vices of men. Some of the common people (not one, however, in ten thousand) commit disorders. Well! punish them as you do, and as you ought to punish them, for their violence against the just property of each individual clergyman, as each individual suffers. Support the injured rector, or the injured impropriator, in the enjoyment of the estate, of which (whether on the best plan or not) the laws have put him in possession. Let the crime and the punishment stand upon their own bottom. But now we ought all of us, clergymen most particularly, to avoid assigning another cause of quarrel, in order to infuse a new source of bitterness into a dispute, which personal feelings on both sides will of themselves make bitter enough, and thereby involve in it by religious descriptions men, who have individually no share whatsoever in those irregular acts. Let us not make the malignant fictions of our own imaginations, heated with factious controversies, reasons for keeping men, that are neither guilty, nor justly suspected of crime, in a servitude equally dishonourable and unsafe to religion, and to the state. When men are constantly accused, but know themselves not to be guilty, they must naturally abhor their accusers. There is no character, when malignantly taken up and deliberately pursued, which more naturally excites indignation and abhorrence in mankind; especially in that part of mankind which suffers from it.-Letter to Richard Burke, Esq.

ADVANTAGE OF A LIBERAL POLICY TOWARDS IRE

LAND. It is very unfortunate that we should consider those as rivals, whom we ought to regard as fellow labourers in a common cause. Ireland has never made a single step in its progress towards prosperity, by which you have not had a share, and perhaps the greatest share, in the benefit. That progress has been chiefly owing to her own natural advantages, and her own efforts, which, after a long time, and by slow degrees, have prevailed in some measure over the mischievous systems which they have adopted. Far enough she is still from having arrived even at an ordinary state of perfection; and if our jealousies were to be converted into politics, as systematically as some would have them, the trade of Ireland would vanish out of the system of commerce. But believe me, if Ireland is beneficial to you, it is so not from the parts in which it is restrained, but from those in which it is left free, though not left unrivalled. The greater its freedom, the greater must be your advantage. If you should lose in one way, you will gain in twenty.-Letter to Messrs. and Co., Bristol.

THE EVIL ATTENDING ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE MINORITY IN IRELAND, AND THE ESSENTIAL ADVANTAGE OF A CLOSE CONNECTION BETWEEN THAT COUN

TRY AND ENGLAND.-My health has gone down very rapidly; and I have been brought hither (Bath) with very faint hopes of life, and enfeebled to such a degree, as those, who had known me some time ago, could scarcely think credible. Since I came hither, my sufferings have been greatly aggravated, and my little strength still further reduced; so that, though I am told the symptoms of my disorder begin to carry a more favourable aspect, I pass the far larger part of the twenty-four hours, indeed almost all the