by Edmund Burke
The session was now at an end. The ministers, instead of attending to a duty that was so urgent on them, employed themselves, as usual, in endeavors to destroy the reputation of those who were bold enough to remind them of it. They caused it to be industriously circulated through the nation, that the distresses of Ireland were of a nature hard to be traced to the true source, that they had been monstrously magnified, and that, in particular, the official reports from Ireland had given the lie (that was their phrase) to Lord Rockingham’s representations: and attributing the origin of the Irish proceedings wholly to us, they asserted that everything done in Parliament upon the subject was with a view of stirring up rebellion; “that neither the Irish legislature nor their constituents had signified any dissatisfaction at the relief obtained in the session preceding the last; that, to convince both of the impropriety of their peaceable conduct, opposition, by making demands in the name of Ireland, pointed out what she might extort from Great Britain; that the facility with which relief was (formerly) granted, instead of satisfying opposition, was calculated to create new demands; these demands, as they interfered with the commerce of Great Britain, were certain of being opposed, — a circumstance which could not fail to create that desirable confusion which suits the views of the party; that they (the Irish) had long felt their own misery, without knowing well from whence it came; our worthy patriots, by pointing out Great Britain as the cause of Irish distress, may have some chance of rousing Irish resentment.” This I quote from a pamphlet as perfectly contemptible in point of writing as it is false in its facts and wicked in its design: but as it is written under the authority of ministers, by one of their principal literary pensioners, and was circulated with great diligence, and, as I am credibly informed, at a considerable expense to the public, I use the words of that book to let you see in what manner the friends and patrons of Ireland, the heroes of your Parliament, represented all efforts for your relief here, what means they took to dispose the minds of the people towards that great object, and what encouragement they gave to all who should choose to exert themselves in your favor. Their unwearied endeavors were not wholly without success, and the unthinking people in many places became ill-affected towards us on this account. For the ministers proceeded in your affairs just as they did with regard to those of America. They always represented you as a parcel of blockheads, without sense, or even feeling; that all your words were only the echo of faction here; and (as you have seen above) that you had not understanding enough to know that your trade was cramped by restrictive acts of the British Parliament, unless we had, for factious purposes, given you the information. They were so far from giving the least intimation of the measures which have since taken place, that those who were supposed the best to know their intentions declared them impossible in the actual state of the two kingdoms, and spoke of nothing but an act of union, as the only way that could be found of giving freedom of trade to Ireland, consistently with the interests of this kingdom. Even when the session opened, Lord North declared that he did not know what remedy to apply to a disease of the cause of which he was ignorant; and ministry not being then entirely resolved how far they should submit to your energy, they, by anticipation, set the above author or some of his associates to fill the newspapers with invectives against us, as distressing the minister by extravagant demands in favor of Ireland.
I need not inform you, that everything they asserted of the steps taken in Ireland, as the result of our machinations, was utterly false and groundless. For myself, I seriously protest to you, that I neither wrote a word or received a line upon any matter relative to the trade of Ireland, or to the polities of it, from the beginning of the last session to the day that I was honored with your letter. It would be an affront to the talents in the Irish Parliament to say one word more.
What was done in Ireland during that period, in and out of Parliament, never will be forgotten. You raised an army new in its kind and adequate to its purposes. It effected its end without its exertion. It was not under the authority of law, most certainly, but it derived from an authority still higher; and as they say of faith, that it is not contrary to reason, but above it, so this army did not so much contradict the spirit of the law as supersede it. What you did in the legislative body is above all praise. By your proceeding with regard to the supplies, you revived the grand use and characteristic benefit of Parliament, which was on the point of being entirely lost amongst us. These sentiments I never concealed, and never shall; and Mr. Fox expressed them with his usual power, when he spoke on the subject.
All this is very honorable to you. But in what light must we see it? How are we to consider your armament without commission from the crown, when some of the first people in this kingdom have been refused arms, at the time they did not only not reject, but solicited the king’s commissions? Here to arm and embody would be represented as little less than high treason, if done on private authority: with you it receives the thanks of a Privy Counsellor of Great Britain, who obeys the Irish House of Lords in that point with pleasure, and is made Secretary of State, the moment he lands here, for his reward. You shortened the credit given to the crown to six months; you hung up the public credit of your kingdom by a thread; you refused to raise any taxes, whilst you confessed the public debt and public exigencies to be great and urgent beyond example. You certainly acted in a great style, and on sound and invincible principles. But if we in the opposition, which fills Ireland with such loyal horrors, had even attempted, what we never did even attempt, the smallest delay or the smallest limitation of supply, in order to a constitutional coercion of the crown, we should have been decried by all the court and Tory mouths of this kingdom, as a desperate faction, aiming at the direct ruin of the country, and to surrender it bound hand and foot to a foreign enemy. By actually doing what we never ventured to attempt, you have paid your court with such address, and have won so much favor with his Majesty and his cabinet, that they have, of their special grace and mere motion, raised you to new titles, and for the first time, ill a speech from the throne, complimented you with the appellation of “faithful and loyal,” — and, in order to insult our low-spirited and degenerate obedience, have thrown these epithets and your resistance together in our teeth! What do you think were the feelings of every man who looks upon Parliament in an higher light than that of a market-overt for legalizing a base traffic of votes and pensions, when he saw you employ such means of coercion to the crown, in order to coerce our Parliament through that medium? How much his Majesty is pleased with his part of the civility must be left to his own taste. But as to us, you declared to the world that you knew that the way of bringing us to reason was to apply yourselves to the true source of all our opinions and the only motive to all our conduct! Now, it seems, you think yourselves affronted, because a few of us express some indignation at the minister who has thought fit to strip us stark naked, and expose the true state of our poxed and pestilential habit to the world! Think or say what you will in Ireland, I shall ever think it a crime hardly to be expiated by his blood. He might, and ought, by a longer continuance or by an earlier meeting of this Parliament, to have given us the credit of some wisdom in foreseeing and anticipating an approaching force. So far from it, Lord Gower, coming out of his own cabinet, declares that one principal cause of his resignation was his not being able to prevail on the present minister to give any sort of application to this business. Even on the late meeting of Parliament, nothing determinate could be drawn from him, or from any of his associates, until you had actually passed the short money bill, — which measure they flattered themselves, and assured others, you would never come up to. Disappointed in their expectation at [of?] seeing the siege raised, they surrendered at discretion.
Judge, my dear Sir, of our surprise at finding your censure directed against those whose only crime was in accusing the ministers of not having prevented your demands by our graces, of not having given you the natural advantages of your country in the most ample, the most early, and
the most liberal manner, and for not having given away authority in such a manner as to insure friendship. That you should make the panegyric of the ministers is what I expected; because, in praising their bounty, you paid a just compliment to your own force. But that you should rail at us, either individually or collectively, is what I can scarcely think a natural proceeding. I can easily conceive that gentlemen might grow frightened at what they had done, — that they might imagine they had undertaken a business above their direction, — that, having obtained a state of independence for their country, they meant to take the deserted helm into their own hands, and supply by their very real abilities the total inefficacy of the nominal government. All these might be real, and might be very justifiable motives for their reconciling themselves cordially to the present court system. But I do not so well discover the reasons that could induce them, at the first feeble dawning of life in this country, to do all in their power to cast a cloud over it, and to prevent the least hope of our effecting the necessary reformations which are aimed at in our Constitution and in our national economy.
But, it seems, I was silent at the passing the resolutions. Why, what had I to say? If I had thought them too much, I should have been accused of an endeavor to inflame England. If I should represent them as too little, I should have been charged with a design of fomenting the discontents of Ireland into actual rebellion. The Treasury bench represented that the affair was a matter of state: they represented it truly. I therefore only asked whether they knew these propositions to be such as would satisfy Ireland; for if they were so, they would satisfy me. This did not indicate that I thought them too ample. In this our silence (however dishonorable to Parliament) there was one advantage, — that the whole passed, as far as it is gone, with complete unanimity, and so quickly that there was no time left to excite any opposition to it out of doors. In the West India business, reasoning on what had lately passed in the Parliament of Ireland, and on the mode in which it was opened here, I thought I saw much matter of perplexity. But I have now better reason than ever to be pleased with my silence. If I had spoken, one of the most honest and able men in the Irish Parliament would probably have thought my observation an endeavor to sow dissension, which he was resolved to prevent, — and one of the most, ingenious and one of the most amiable men that ever graced yours or any House of Parliament might have looked on it as a chimera. In the silence I observed, I was strongly countenanced (to say no more of it) by every gentleman of Ireland that I had the honor of conversing with in London. The only word, for that reason, which I spoke, was to restrain a worthy county member, who had received some communication from a great trading place in the county he represents, which, if it had been opened to the House, would have led to a perplexing discussion of one of the most troublesome matters that could arise in this business. I got up to put a stop to it; and I believe, if you knew what the topic was, you would commend my discretion.
That it should be a matter of public discretion in me to be silent on the affairs of Ireland is what on all accounts I bitterly lament. I stated to the House what I felt; and I felt, as strongly as human sensibility can feel, the extinction of my Parliamentary capacity, where I wished to use it most. When I came into this Parliament, just fourteen years ago, — into this Parliament, then, in vulgar opinion at least, the presiding council of the greatest empire existing, (and perhaps, all things considered, that ever did exist,) obscure and a stranger as I was, I considered myself as raised to the highest dignity to which a creature of our species could aspire. In that opinion, one of the chief pleasures in my situation, what was first and-uppermost in my thoughts, was the hope, without injury to this country, to be somewhat useful to the place of my birth and education, which in many respects, internal and external, I thought ill and impolitically governed. But when I found that the House, surrendering itself to the guidance of an authority, not grown out of an experienced wisdom and integrity, but out of the accidents of court favor, had become the sport of the passions of men at once rash and pusillanimous, — that it had even got into the habit of refusing everything to reason and surrendering everything to force, all my power of obliging either my country or individuals was gone, all the lustre of my imaginary rank was tarnished, and I felt degraded even by my elevation. I said this, or something to this effect. If it gives offence to Ireland, I am sorry for it: it was the reason I gave for my silence; and it was, as far as it went, the true one.
With you, this silence of mine and of others was represented as factious, and as a discountenance to the measure of your relief. Do you think us children? If it had been our wish to embroil matters, and, for the sake of distressing ministry, to commit the two kingdoms in a dispute, we had nothing to do but (without at all condemning the propositions) to have gone into the commercial detail of the objects of them. It could not have been refused to us: and you, who know the nature of business so well, must know that this would have caused such delays, and given rise during that delay to such discussions, as all the wisdom of your favorite minister could never have settled. But, indeed, you mistake your men. We tremble at the idea of a disunion of these two nations. The only thing in which we differ with you is this, — that we do not think your attaching yourselves to the court and quarrelling with the independent part of this people is the way to promote the union of two free countries, or of holding them together by the most natural and salutary ties.
You will be frightened, when you see this long letter. I smile, when I consider the length of it myself. I never, that I remember, wrote any of the same extent. But it shows me that the reproaches of the country that I once belonged to, and in which I still have a dearness of instinct more than I can justify to reason, make a greater impression on me than I had imagined. But parting words are admitted to be a little tedious, because they are not likely to be renewed. If it will not be making yourself as troublesome to others as I am to you, I shall be obliged to you, if you will show this, at their greatest leisure, to the Speaker, to your excellent kinsman, to Mr. Grattan, Mr. Yelverton, and Mr. Daly: all these I have the honor of being personally known to, except Mr. Yelverton, to whom I am only known by my obligations to him. If you live in any habits with my old friend, the Provost, I shall be glad that he, too, sees this my humble apology.
Adieu! once more accept my best thanks for the interest you take in me. Believe that it is received by an heart not yet so old as to have lost its susceptibility. All here give you the best old-fashioned wishes of the season; and believe me, with the greatest truth and regard,
My dear Sir,
Your most faithful and obliged humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, New year’s Day, 1780.
I am frightened at the trouble I give you and our friends; but I recollect that you are mostly lawyers, and habituated to read long, tiresome papers — and, where your friendship is concerned, without a fee; I am sure, too, that you will not act the lawyer in scrutinizing too minutely every expression which my haste may make me use. I forgot to mention my friend O’Hara, and others; but you will communicate it as you please.
LETTER
TO JOHN MERLOTT, ESQ.
Dear Sir, — I am very unhappy to find that my conduct in the business of Ireland, on a former occasion, had made many to be cold and indifferent who would otherwise have been warm in my favor. I really thought that events would have produced a quite contrary effect, and would have proved to all the inhabitants of Bristol that it was no desire of opposing myself to their wishes, but a certain knowledge of the necessity of their affairs, and a tender regard to their honor and interest, which induced me to take the part which I then took. They placed me in a situation which might enable me to discern what was fit to be done, on a consideration of the relative circumstances of this country and all its neighbors. This was what you could not so well do yourselves; but you had a right to expect that I should avail myself of the advantage which I derived from your favor. Under the impression-of this duty and this trust, I
had endeavored to render, by preventive graces and concessions, every act of power at the same time an act of lenity, — the result of English bounty, and not of English timidity and distress. I really flattered myself that the events which have proved beyond dispute the prudence of such a maxim would have obtained pardon for me, if not approbation. But if I have not been so fortunate, I do most sincerely regret my great loss, — this comfort, however, that, if I have disobliged my constituents, it was not in pursuit of any sinister interest or any party passion of my own, but in endeavoring to save them from disgrace, along with the whole community to which they and I belong. I shall be concerned for this, and very much so; but I should be more concerned, if, in gratifying a present humor of theirs, I had rendered myself unworthy of their former or their future choice. I confess that I could not bear to face my constituents at the next general election, if I had been a rival to Lord North in the glory of having refused some small, insignificant concessions, in favor of Ireland, to the arguments and supplications of English members of Parliament, — and in the very next session, on the demand of forty thousand Irish bayonets, of having made a speech of two hours long to prove that my former conduct was founded upon no one right principle, either of policy, justice, or commerce. I never heard a more elaborate, more able, more convincing, and more shameful speech. The debater obtained credit, but the statesman was disgraced forever. Amends were made for having refused small, but timely concessions, by an unlimited and untimely surrender, not only of every one of the objects of former restraints, but virtually of the whole legislative power itself which had made them. For it is not necessary to inform you, that the unfortunate Parliament of this kingdom did not dare to qualify the very liberty she gave of trading with her own plantations, by applying, of her own authority, any one of the commercial regulations to the new traffic of Ireland, which bind us here under the several Acts of Navigation. We were obliged to refer them to the Parliament of Ireland, as conditions, just in the same manner as if we were bestowing a privilege of the same sort on France and Spain, or any other independent power, and, indeed, with more studied caution than we should have used, not to shock the principle of their independence. How the minister reconciled the refusal to reason, and the surrender to arms raised in defiance of the prerogatives of the crown, to his master, I know not: it has probably been settled, in some way or other, between themselves. But however the king and his ministers may settle the question of his dignity and his rights, I thought it became me, by vigilance and foresight, to take care of yours: I thought I ought rather to lighten the ship in time than expose it to a total wreck. The conduct pursued seemed to me without weight or judgment, and more fit for a member for Banbury than a member for Bristol. I stood, therefore, silent with grief and vexation, on that day of the signal shame and humiliation of this degraded king and country. But it seems the pride of Ireland, in the day of her power, was equal to ours, when we dreamt we were powerful too. I have been abused there even for my silence, which was construed into a desire of exciting discontent in England. But, thank God, my letter to Bristol was in print, my sentiments on the policy of the measure were known and determined, and such as no man could think me absurd enough to contradict. When I am no longer a free agent, I am obliged in the crowd to yield to necessity: it is surely enough that I silently submit to power; it is enough that I do not foolishly affront the conqueror; it is too hard to force me to sing his praises, whilst I am led in triumph before him, — or to make the panegyric of our own minister, who would put me neither in a condition to surrender with honor or to fight with the smallest hope of victory. I was, I confess, sullen and silent on that day, — and shall continue so, until I see some disposition to inquire into this and other causes of the national disgrace. If I suffer in my reputation for it in Ireland, I am sorry; but it neither does nor can affect me so nearly as my suffering in Bristol for having wished to unite the interests of the two nations in a manner that would secure the supremacy of this.