dinate parts of the ftate, as a furrender into their hands of the whole government of the kingdom, To them I have nothing at all to say. Wishing to proceed with a deliberative spirit and temper in fo very ferious a queftion, I fhall attempt to analyze, as well as I can, the principles you lay down, in order to fit them for the grafp of an understanding fo little comprehenfive as mineState'-' Proteftant'' Revolution.' These are terms, which, if not well explained, may lead us into many errors. In the word State, I conceive there is much ambiguity. The flate is fometimes ufed to fignify the whole common-wealth, comprehending all its orders, with the feveral privileges belonging to each. Sometimes it fignifies only the higher and ruling part of the common-weaith; which we commonly call the Government. In the first fenfe, to be under the ftate, but not the ftate itself, nor any part of it, that is to be nothing at all in the common-wealth, is a fituation perf.&ly intelligible : but to those who fill that fituation, not very pleasant, when it is understood. It is a state of civil fervitude by the very force of the definition. Servorum non est refpublica, is a very old and a very true maxim. This fervitude, which makes men fubject to a ftate without being citizens, may be more or lefs tolerable from many circumstances: but thefe circumftanccs, more on lefs favourable, do not alter the nature of the thing. The mildness by which abfolute mafters exercife their dominion, leaves them mafters ftill. We may talk a little prefently of the manner in which the majority of the people of Ireland (the Catholics) are affected by this fituation; which at prefent undoubtedly is theirs, and which you are of opinion, ought fo to continue for ever In the other fenfe of the word State, by understood the Supreme government only, I which is muft ob ferve ferve this upon the queftion; that to exclude whole. claffes of men entirely from this part of government, cannot be confidered as abfolute flavery. It only implies a lower and degraded state of citizenship; fuch is (with more or lefs ftrictnefs) the condition of all countries, in which an hereditary nobility poffefs the exclufive rule. This may be no bad mode of government; provided that the perfonal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their cabals and factions are guarded against with a fevere vigilance, and that the people, (who have no fhare in granting their own money) are fubjected to but light impofitions, and are otherwife treated with attention, and with indulgence to their humours and prejudices. The republic of Venice is one of those which ftrict-. ly confines all the great functions and offices, fuch as are truly fate-functions and ftare-offices, to thofe who, by hereditary right or admiflion, are noble Venetians. But there are many offices, and fome of them not mean nor unprofitable, which are referved for the Citadini. Of these all citizens of Venice are capable. The inhabitants of the Terra firma, who are mere fubjects of conqueft, that is, as you exprefs it, un · der the ftate, but "not a part of it,," are not, however, fubjects in fo very rigorous a fense as not to be capable of numberlefs fubordinate employments, It is indeed one of the advantages attending the nar row bottom of their ariftocracy (narrow as compared with their acquired dominions, otherwife broad enough) that an exclufion from fuch employments cannot poflibly be made amongst their fubjects. There are, befides, advantages in ftates fo conftituted, by which thofe who are confidered as of an infe rior race, are indemnified for their exclufion from the government and from noble employments. In all these countries, either by exprefs law, or by ufage more operative, the noble cafts are almoft univer fally, fally, in their turn, excluded from commerce, manu facture, farming of land, and in general from all lucrative civil profeffions. The nobles have the monopoly of honour. The plebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus fome fort of a balance is formed among conditions; a fort of compenfation is furnished to thofe, who, in a limited fenfe, are excluded from the government of the ftate. Between the extreme of a total exclufion, to which your maxim goes, and an univerfal unmodified capacity, to which the fanatics pretend, there are many different degrees and ftages, and a great variety of temperaments, upon which prudence may give full fcope to its exertions. For you know that the decifions of prudence (contrary to the fyftem of the infane reasoners) differ from those of judicature: and that almost all the former are determined on the more or the lefs, the earlier or the later, and on a balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good and evil. In all confiderations which turn upon the queftion of vefting or continuing the ftate folely and exclufively in fome one defcription of citizens; prudent legiflators will confider, how far the general form and principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be caft into an oligarchical shape, or to remain always in it. We know that the government of Ireland (the fame as the British) is not in its conftitution wholly aristocratical; and as it is not fuch in its form, fo neither is it in its fpirit. If it had been inveterately ariftocratical, exclufions might be more patiently fubmitted to. The lot of one plebeian would be the lot of all; and an habitual reverence and admiration of certain families, might make the people content to fee government wholly in hands to whom it seemed naturally to belong. But our conftitution has a plebeian member, which forms an effential integrant part of it. A ple beian beian oligarchy isa monfter: and no people, not abfolutely domeftic or predial flaves, will long endure it. The Proteftants of Ireland are not alone fufficiently the people to form a democracy; and they are too numerous to answer the ends and purposes of an aristocracy. Admiration, that first fource of obedience, can be only the claim or the impofture of the few. I hold it to be abfolutely impoffible for two millions of plebeians, compofing certainly a very clear and decided majority in that clafs, to become fo far in love with fix or feven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outward appearance plebeians like themfelves, and many of them tradefmen, fervants, and otherwife inferior to fome of them) as to fee with fatisfaction, or even with patience, an exclusive power vef ted in them, by which conftitutionally they become the abfolute mafters; and by the manners derived from their circumftances, must be capable of exerci fing upon them, daily and hourly, an infulting and vexatious fuperiority. Neither are the majority of the Irish indemnified (as in fome ariftocracies) for this ftate of humiliating vaffalage (often inverting the na ture of things and relations) by having the lower walks of industry wholly abandoned to them. They are rivalled, to fay the leaft of the matter, in every laborious and lucrative courfe of life while every franchife, every honour, every truft, every place down to the very lowest and leaft confidential (befides whole profeffions), is referved for the mafter cast. Our conftitution is not made for great, general, and profcriptive exclufions; fooner or later, it will defroy them, or they will deftroy the conftitution. In our conftitution there has always been a difference made between a franchise and an office, and between the capacity for the one and for the other. Franchifes were fuppofed to belong to the fubject, 29 as a fubject, and not as a member of the governing part of the state. The policy of government has confidered them as things very different: for whilft parliament excluded by the teft acts (and for a while thefe teft acts were not a dead letter, as now they are in England) proteftant diffenters from all civil and military employments, they never touched their right of voting for members of parliament, or fitting in either house; a point, I ftate, not as approving or condemning, with regard to them, the measure of exclufion from employments, but to prove that the diftinction has been admitted in legislature, as, in truth, it is founded in reafon. I will not here examine, whether the principles of the British [the Irish] conftitution, be wife or not. I muft affume that they are; and that those who partake the franchises which make it, partake of a benefit. They who are excluded from votes (under proper qualifications inherent in the conftitution that gives them) are excluded, not from the ftate, but from the British conftitution. They cannot by any poflibility, whilft they hear its praises continually rung in their ears, and are prefent at the declaration which is fo generally and fo bravely made by thofe who poffefs the privilege that the best blood in their veins ought to be fhed, to preserve their fhare in it; they, the disfranchifed part, cannot, I fay, think themselves in an happy ftate, to be utterly excluded from all its direct and all its confequential advantages. The popular part of the conftitution must be to them, by far the moft odious part of it. To them it is not an actual, and, if poffible, fill lefs a virtual reprefentation. It is indeed the direct contrary. It is power unlimited, placed in the hands of an adverfe defcription, because it is an adverfe defeription. And if they who compose the privileged body have not an intereft, they muit but too frequently have motives of pride, paffion, petulance peevish, jealoufy, |