by Edmund Burke
When religion is brought into a question of civil and political arrangement, it must be considered more politically than theologically, at least by us, who are nothing more than mere laymen. In that light, the case of the Catholics of Ireland is peculiarly hard, whether they be laity or clergy. If any of them take part, like the gentleman you mention, with some of the most accredited Protestants of the country, in projects which cannot be more abhorrent to your nature and disposition than they are to mine, — in that case, however few these Catholic factions who are united with factious Protestants may be, (and very few they are now, whatever shortly they may become,) on their account the whole body is considered as of suspected fidelity to the crown, and as wholly undeserving of its favor. But if, on the contrary, in those districts of the kingdom where their numbers are the greatest, where they make, in a manner, the whole body of the people, (as, out of cities, in three fourths of the kingdom they do,) these Catholics show every mark of loyalty and zeal in support of the government, which at best looks on them with an evil eye, then their very loyalty is turned against their claims. They are represented as a contented and happy people, and that it is unnecessary to do anything more in their favor. Thus the factious disposition of a few among the Catholics and the loyalty of the whole mass are equally assigned as reasons for not putting them on a par with those Protestants who are asserted by the government itself, which frowns upon Papists, to be in a state of nothing short of actual rebellion, and in a strong disposition to make common cause with the worst foreign enemy that these countries have ever had to deal with. What in the end can come of all this?
As to the Irish Catholic clergy, their condition is likewise most critical. If they endeavor by their influence to keep a dissatisfied laity in quiet, they are in danger of losing the little credit they possess, by being considered as the instruments of a government adverse to the civil interests of their flock. If they let things take their course, they will be represented as colluding with sedition, or at least tacitly encouraging it. If they remonstrate against persecution, they propagate rebellion. Whilst government publicly avows hostility to that people, as a part of a regular system, there is no road they can take which does not lead to their ruin.
If nothing can be done on your side of the water, I promise you that nothing will be done here. Whether in reality or only in appearance I cannot positively determine, but you will be left to yourselves by the ruling powers here. It is thus ostensibly and above-board; and in part, I believe, the disposition is real. As to the people at large in this country, I am sure they have no disposition to intermeddle in your affairs. They mean you no ill whatever; and they are too ignorant of the state of your affairs to be able to do you any good. Whatever opinion they have on your subject is very faint and indistinct; and if there is anything like a formed notion, even that amounts to no more than a sort of humming that remains on their ears of the burden of the old song about Popery. Poor souls, they are to be pitied, who think of nothing but dangers long passed by, and but little of the perils that actually surround them.
I have been long, but it is almost a necessary consequence of dictating, and that by snatches, as a relief from pain gives me the means of expressing my sentiments. They can have little weight, as coming from me; and I have not power enough of mind or body to bring them out with their natural force. But I do not wish to have it concealed that I am of the same opinion, to my last breath, which I entertained when my faculties were at the best; and I have not held back from men in power in this kingdom, to whom I have very good wishes, any part of my sentiments on this melancholy subject, so long as I had means of access to persons of their consideration.
I have the honor to be, &c.
LETTER ON MR. DOWDESWELL’S BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS.
An improper and injurious account of the bill brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Dowdeswell has lately appeared in one of the public papers. I am not at all surprised at it, as I am not a stranger to the views and politics of those who have caused it to be inserted.
Mr. Dowdeswell did not bring in an enacting bill to give to juries, as the account expresses it, a power to try law and fact in matter of libel. Mr. Dowdeswell brought in a bill to put an end to those doubts and controversies upon that subject which have unhappily distracted our courts, to the great detriment of the public, and to the great dishonor of the national justice.
That it is the province of the jury, in informations and indictments for libels, to try nothing more than the fact of the composing and of the publishing averments and innuendoes is a doctrine held at present by all the judges of the King’s Bench, probably by most of the judges of the kingdom. The same doctrine has been held pretty uniformly since the Revolution; and it prevails more or less with the jury, according to the degree of respect with which they are disposed to receive the opinions of the bench.
This doctrine, which, when it prevails, tends to annihilate the benefit of trial by jury, and when it is rejected by juries, tends to weaken and disgrace the authority of the judge, is not a doctrine proper for an English judicature. For the sake both of judge and jury, the controversy ought to be quieted, and the law ought to be settled in a manner clear, definitive, and constitutional, by the only authority competent to it, the authority of the legislature.
Mr. Dowdeswell’s bill was brought in for that purpose. It gives to the jury no new powers; but, after reciting the doubts and controversies, (which nobody denies actually to subsist,) and after stating, that, if juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of trial by jury will be of none or imperfect effect, it enacts, not that the jury shall have the power, but that they shall be held and reputed in law and right competent to try the whole matter laid in the information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion in law which they are known to hold upon this subject, — and does not in the least imply that the jury were to derive a new right and power from that bill, if it should have passed into an act of Parliament. The implication is directly the contrary, and is as strongly conveyed as it is possible for those to do who state a doubt and controversy without charging with criminality those persons who so doubted and so controverted.
Such a style is frequent in acts of this nature, and is that only which is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words enact and declare, as if they were formal and operative words of force to distinguish different species of laws producing different effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to have been brought in upon the principle and in the style of the Petition of Right and Declaration of Right ought to consider how far the circumstances are the same in the two cases, and how far they are prepared to go the whole lengths of the reason of those remarkable laws. Mr. Dowdeswell and his friends are of opinion that the circumstances are not the same, and that therefore the bill ought not to be the same.
It has been always disagreeable to the persons who compose that connection to engage wantonly in a paper war, especially with gentlemen for whom they have an esteem, and who seem to agree with them in the great grounds of their public conduct; but they can never consent to purchase any assistance from any persons by the forfeiture of their own reputation. They respect public opinion; and therefore, whenever they shall be called upon, they are ready to meet their adversaries, as soon as they please, before the tribunal of the public, and there to justify the constitutional nature and tendency, the propriety, the prudence, and the policy of their bill. They are equally ready to explain and to justify all their proceedings in the conduct of it, — equally ready to defend their resolution to make it one object (if ever they should have the power) in a plan of public reformation.
Your correspondent ought to have been satisfied with the assistance which his friends have lent to administration in defeating that bill. He ought not to make a feeble endeavor (I dare say, much to the displeasure
of those friends) to disgrace the gentleman who brought it in. A measure proposed by Mr. Dowdeswell, seconded by Sir George Savile, and supported by their friends, will stand fair with the public, even though it should have been opposed by that list of names (respectable names, I admit) which have been printed with so much parade and ostentation in your papers.
It is not true that Mr. Burke spoke in praise of Lord Mansfield. If he had found anything in Lord Mansfield praiseworthy, I fancy he is not disposed to make an apology to anybody for doing justice. Your correspondent’s reason for asserting it is visible enough; and it is altogether in the strain of other misrepresentations. That gentlemen spoke decently of the judges, and he did no more; most of the gentlemen who debated, on both sides, held the same language; and nobody will think their zeal the less warm, or the less effectual, because it is not attended with scurrility and virulence.
The Biographies
Gerrard Street, London — Burke’s home in central London
Edmund Burke by the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds
INTRODUCTION TO EDMUND BURKE by Sidney Carleton Newsom
CONTENTS
EDMUND BURKE
BURKE AS A STATESMAN
A GROUP OF WRITERS COMING IMMEDIATELY BEFORE BURKE
A GROUP OF WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH BURKE
BURKE IN LITERATURE
A GROUP OF WRITERS COMING IMMEDIATELY AFTER BURKE
TOPICS FOR SPECIAL REPORTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDMUND BURKE
There is nothing unusual in Burke’s early life. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1729. His father was a successful lawyer and a Protestant, his mother, a Catholic. At the age of twelve, he became a pupil of Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker, who had been teaching some fifteen years at Ballitore, a small town thirty miles from Dublin. In after years Burke was always pleased to speak of his old friend in the kindest way: “If I am anything,” he declares, “it is the education I had there that has made me so.” And again at Shackleton’s death, when Burke was near the zenith of his fame and popularity, he writes: “I had a true honor and affection for that excellent man. I feel something like a satisfaction in the midst of my concern, that I was fortunate enough to have him under my roof before his departure.” It can hardly be doubted that the old Quaker schoolmaster succeeded with his pupil who was already so favorably inclined, and it is more than probable that the daily example of one who lived out his precepts was strong in its influence upon a young and generous mind.
Burke attended school at Ballitore two years; then, at the age of fourteen, he became a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and remained there five years. At college he was unsystematic and careless of routine. He seems to have done pretty much as he pleased, and, however methodical he became in after life, his study during these five years was rambling and spasmodic. The only definite knowledge we have of this period is given by Burke himself in letters to his former friend Richard Shackleton, son of his old schoolmaster. What he did was done with a zest that at times became a feverish impatience: “First I was greatly taken with natural philosophy, which, while I should have given my mind to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my FUROR MATHEMATICUS.” Following in succession come his FUROR LOGICUS, FUROR HISTORICUS, and FUROR PEOTICUS, each of which absorbed him for the time being. It would be wrong, however, to think of Burke as a trifler even in his youth. He read in the library three hours every day and we may be sure he read as intelligently as eagerly. It is more than probable that like a few other great minds he did not need a rigid system to guide him. If he chose his subjects of study at pleasure, there is every reason to believe he mastered them.
Of intimate friends at the University we hear nothing. Goldsmith came one year later, but there is no evidence that they knew each other. It is probable that Burke, always reserved, had little in common with his young associates. His own musings, with occasional attempts at writing poetry, long walks through the country, and frequent letters to and from Richard Shackleton, employed him when not at his books.
Two years after taking his degree, Burke went to London and established himself at the Middle Temple for the usual routine course in law. Another long period passes of which there is next to nothing known. His father, an irascible, hot-tempered man, had wished him to begin the practice of law, but Burke seems to have continued in a rather irregular way pretty much as when an undergraduate at Dublin. His inclinations were not toward the law, but literature. His father, angered at such a turn of affairs, promptly reduced his allowance and left him to follow his natural bent in perfect freedom. In 1756, six years after his arrival in London, and almost immediately following the rupture with his father, he married a Miss Nugent. At about the same time he published his first two books, [Footnote: A Vindication of Natural Society and Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful] and began in earnest the life of an author.
He attracted the attention of literary men. Dr. Johnson had just completed his famous dictionary, and was the centre of a group of writers who accepted him at his own valuation. Burke did not want for company, and wrote copiously.[Footnote: Hints for an Essay on the Drama. Abridgement of the History of England] He became associated with Dodsley, a bookseller, who began publishing the Annual Register in 1759, and was paid a hundred pounds a year for writing upon current events. He spent two years (1761-63) in Ireland in the employment of William Hamilton, but at the end of that time returned, chagrined and disgusted with his would-be patron, who utterly failed to recognize Burke’s worth, and persisted in the most unreasonable demands upon his time and energy.
For once Burke’s independence served him well. In 1765 Lord Rockingham became prime minister, and Burke, widely known as the chief writer for the Annual Register, was free to accept the position of private secretary, which Lord Rockingham was glad to offer him. His services here were invaluable. The new relations thus established did not end with the performance of the immediate duties of his office, but a warm friendship grew up between the two, which lasted till the death of Lord Rockingham. While yet private secretary, Burke was elected to Parliament from the borough of Wendover. It was through the influence of his friend, or perhaps relative, William Burke, that his election was secured.
Only a few days after taking his seat in the House of Commons, Burke made his first speech, January 27, 1766. He followed this in a very short time with another upon the same subject — the Taxation of the American Colonies. Notwithstanding the great honor and distinction which these first speeches brought Burke, his party was dismissed at the close of the session and the Chatham ministry formed. He remained with his friends, and employed himself in refuting [Footnote: Observations on the Present State of the Nation] the charges of the former minister, George Grenville, who wrote a pamphlet accusing his successors of gross neglect of public duties.
At this point in his life comes the much-discussed matter of Beaconsfield. How Burke became rich enough to purchase such expensive property is a question that has never been answered by his friends or enemies. There are mysterious hints of successful speculation in East India stock, of money borrowed, and Burke himself, in a letter to Shackleton, speaks of aid from his friends and “all [the money] he could collect of his own.” However much we may regret the air of mystery surrounding the matter, and the opportunity given those ever ready to smirch a great man’s character, it is not probable that any one ever really doubted Burke’s integrity in this or any other transaction. Perhaps the true explanation of his seemingly reckless extravagance (if any explanation is needed) is that the conventional standards of his time forced it upon him; and it may be that Burke himself sympathized to some extent with these standards, and felt a certain satisfaction in maintaining a proper attitude before the public.
The celebrated case of Wilkes offered an opportunity for discussing the narrow and corrupt policy pursued by George III. and his followers. Wilkes, outlawed for libel and protected in the meantime through legal technicalities, w
as returned to Parliament by Middlesex. The House expelled him. He was repeatedly elected and as many times expelled, and finally the returns were altered, the House voting its approval by a large majority. In 1770 Burke published his pamphlet [Footnote: Present Discontents] in which he discussed the situation. For the first time he showed the full sweep and breadth of his understanding. His tract was in the interest of his party, but it was written in a spirit far removed from narrow partisanship. He pointed out with absolute clearness the cause of dissatisfaction and unrest among the people and charged George III. and his councillors with gross indifference to the welfare of the nation and corresponding devotion to selfish interests. He contended that Parliament was usurping privileges when it presumed to expel any one, that the people had a right to send whomsoever they pleased to Parliament, and finally that “in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption was at least upon a par in favor of the people.” From this time until the American Revolution, Burke used every opportunity to denounce the policy which the king was pursuing at home and abroad. He doubtless knew beforehand that what he might say would pass unnoticed, but he never faltered in a steadfast adherence to his ideas of government, founded, as he believed, upon the soundest principles. Bristol elected him as its representative in Parliament. It was a great honor and Burke felt its significance, yet he did not flinch when the time came for him to take a stand. He voted for the removal of some of the restrictions upon Irish trade. His constituents, representing one of the most prosperous mercantile districts, angered and disappointed at what they held to be a betrayal of trust, refused to reelect him.