laid the foundations of a happy and profperous commonwealth. For my own part, defiring of all things that the authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which I cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial affection, to be maintained in the utmost poffible refpect, I never will fuffer myfelf to fuppofe, that, at bottom, their difcretion will be found to be at variance with their justice.

The whole being at difcretion, I beg leave just to fuggeft fome matters for your confideration-Whether the government in church or ftate is likely to be more fecure by continuing caufes of grounded difcontent, to a very great number (fay two millions) of the fubjects? or, Whether the conftitution, combined and balanced as it is, will be rendered more folid, by depriving fo large a part of the people of all concern, or intereft, or fhare, in its reprefentation, actual or virtual? I here mean to lay an emphasis on the word virtual. Virtual reprefentation is that in which there is a communion of interefts, and a fympathy in feelings and defires between thofe who act in the name of any description of people, and the people in whofe name they act, though the trustees are not actually chofen by them. This is virtual reprefentation. Such a reprefentation I think to be, in many cafes, even better than the actual. It poffeffes moft of its advantages, and is free from many of its inconveniences: it corrects the irregularities in the literal reprefentation, when the shifting current of human affairs, or the acting of public interefts in different ways, carry it obliquely from its first line of direction. The people may err in their choice; but common intereft and common fentiment are rarely mistaken. But this fort of virtual representation cannot have a long or fure exiftence, if it has not a fubftratum in the actual. The member must have some relation to the conflituent.

As things ftand,

ftand, the Catholic, as a Catholic and belonging to a defcription, has no virtual relation to the reprefentative; but the contrary. There is a relation in mutual obligation. Gratitude may not always have a very lafting power; but the frequent recurrence of an application for favours will revive and refresh it, and will neceffarily produce fome degree of mutual attention. It will produce, at leaft, acquaintance. The feveral defcriptions of people will not be kept fo much apart as they now are, as if they were not only feparate nations, but feparate fpecies. The ftigma and reproach, the hideous mafk will be taken off, and men will fee each other as they are. Sure I am, that there have been thousands in Ireland, who have never converfed with a Roman Catholic in their whole lives, unless they happened to talk to their gardener's workmen, or to ask their way, when they had loft it, in their fports; or, at beft, who had known them only as footmen. or other domeftics of the fecond and third order: and fo averfe were they, fome time ago, to have them near their perfons, that they would not employ even thofe who could never find their way beyond the ftable. I well remember a great, and, in many refpects, a good man, who advertifed for a blackfmith; but, at the fame time, added, he must be a Proteftant. It is impoffible that such a state of things, though natural goodness in many perfons will undoubtedly make exceptions, must not produce alienation on the one fide, and pride and infolence on the other.

Reduced to a queftion of difcretion, and that difcretion exercifed folely upon what will appear beft for the confervation of the ftate on its present bafis, I should recommend it to your ferious thoughts, whether the narrowing of the foundation is always the best way to fecure the building? The body of disfranchised men will not be perfectly fatisfied to remain always in that ftate. If they are not fatisfied, Pp 2

you

you have two millions of fubjects in your bofom, full of uneafinefs; not that they cannot overturn the act of fettlement, and put themfelves and you under an arbitrary mafter; or, that they are not permitted to spawn an hydra of wild republics, on principles of a pretended natural equality in man; but, becaufe you will not fuffer them to enjoy the antient, fundamental, tried advantages of a British conftitution; that you will not permit them to profit of the protection of a common father, or the freedom of common citizens: and that the only reafon which can be aligned for this disfranchisement, has a tendency more deeply to ulcerate their minds than the act of exclufion itself. What the confequence of fuch feelings muft be, it is for you to look to. To warn, is not to menace.

I am far from afferting, that men will not excite disturbances without juft caufe. I know that fuch an affertion is not true. But, neither is it true that disturbances have never juft complaints for their origin. I am fure that it is hardly prudent to furnish them with fuch caufes of complaint, as every man who thinks the British conftitution a benefit, may think, at leaft, colourable and plaufible.

among

Several are in dread of the manoeuvres of certain perfons among the diffenters, who turn this ill humour to their own ill purpofes. You know, better than I can, how much thefe proceedings of certain the diffenters are to be feared. You are to weigh, with the temper which is natural to you, whether it may be for the fafety of our establishment, that the Catholics fhould be ultimately perfuaded that they have no hope to enter into the conftitution, but through the diffenters.

Think, whether this be the way to prevent, or diffolve factious combinations against the church, or the ftate. Reflect ferioufly on the poffible confequences of keeping, in the heart of your country,

a bank

a bank of difcontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every defcription of feditious men may draw at pleasure, They, whofe principles of faction would difpofe them to the establishment of an arbitrary monarchy, will find a nation of men who have no fort of intereft in freedom; but who will have an intereft in that equality of juftice or favour, with which a wife defpot muft view all his fubjects who do not attack the foundations of his power. Love of liberty itfelf may, in fuch men, become the means of establishing an arbitrary domination. On the other hand, they who wish for a democratic republic, will find a fet of men who have no choice between civil fervitude, and the entire ruin of a mixed conflitution.

Suppofe the people of Ireland divided into three parts; of thefe (I fpeak within compafs) two are Catholic. Of the remaining third, one half is compofed of Diffenters. There is no natural union between. thofe defcriptions. It may be produced. If the two parts Catholic be driven into a clofe confederacy with half the third part of Proteftants, with a view to a change in the conftitution in church or ftate, or both, and you reft the whole of their fecurity on a handful of gentlemen, clergy, and their dependants; compute the ftrength you have in Ireland, to oppose to grounded difcontent; to capricious innovation, to blind popular fury, and to ambitious turbulent intrigue.

You mention that the minds of fome gentlemen are a good deal heated: and that it is often faid, that rather than fubmit to fuch perfons having a fhare in their franchifes, they would throw up their, independence, and precipitate an union with Great Britain. I have heard a difcuffion concerning fuch an union amongst all forts of men ever fince I remember any thing. For my own part, I have never been able to bring my mind to any thing clear and decifive upon

the

on.

the fubject. There cannot be a more arduous queftiAs far as I can form an opinion, it would not be for the mutual advantage of the two kingdoms. Perfons however more able than I am, think otherwife. But, whatever the merits of this union may be, to make it a menace, it must be fhewn to be an evil; and an evil more particularly to those who are threat ened with it, than to thofe who hold it out as a terror. I really do not fee how this threat of an union can operate, or that the Catholics are more likely to be lofers by that measure than the churchmen.

The humours of the people, and of politicians too, are so variable in themselves and are so much under the occafional influence of fome leading men, that it is impoffible to know what turn the public mind here would take on fuch an event. There is but one thing certain concerning it. Great divifions and vehement paflions would precede this union, both on the mcafure itself and on its terms; and particularly, this very queftion of a fhare in the reprefentation for the Catholics, from whence the project of an union originated, would form a principal part in the difcuffion; and in the temper in which fome gentlemen feem inclined to throw themfelves, by a fort of high indignant paffion, into the fcheme, thofe points would not be deliberated with all poffible calmness.

From my best observation, I should greatly doubt, whether, in the end, thefe gentlemen would obtain their object, fo as to make the exclufion of two millions of their countrymen a fundamental article in the union. The demand would be of a nature quite unprecedented. You might obtain the union: and, yet a gentleman who, under the new union eftablishment, would afpire to the honour of reprefenting his county, might poffibly be as much obliged, as he may fear to be, under the old feparate establishment,