Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

THAT I did not answer your first appeal has been a sufficient reproach to me; I should be ashamed of myself if I could see your second, without making a public avowal of my entire concurrence in your sentiments, and that I heartily back your spirited. appeal to our fellow Protestants of the British empire.

I am not more given to dilation with my pen than I am by word of mouth; I never use either but by compulsion; and if I could now conscientiously avoid the labor and the consequent discomfort, I have every inclination and every motive but one for consulting my ease, and indulging in that privacy which, perhaps, may be most congenial to me. Such a course, however, consistently with what I conceive to be my duty, I cannot find it within me to pursue. I must embark in the same vessel with you, and sink or swim in our endeavor to preserve the religion which we love, the constitution which we reverence.

In your own emphatic words, I painfully confess that we do "live in times when every man who values principles should depend on his own exertions, and not on those of princes, prelates, nobles, politicians, or parliament." It is but too true that such is, in reality, the case; or, in other words, that if we wish to preserve our religion and our laws, each must use his individual power to defend preventively or absolutely the constitution which he has sworn to preserve inviolable in church and state. It may VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII. S

Pam.

sound finely in a republican ear to be told that all are bound to participate in the management of the national interests, and that the will of the people should direct the affairs of the country. I cannot subscribe to such dangerous doctrine as a maxim; I see the mischief of a popular assumption of the executive, and I would, if I could, avoid it; but, unfortunately, we have no choice nowwe are driven into a corner, and we must either make a desperate effort to preserve our constitution or lose it altogether. Deserted or unsupported by those in power, we see ourselves on the brink of ruin; and is it to be imagined that we can or will ignominiously abandon our sacred duty, and basely yield either to our betrayers or our enemies?

An appeal to the nation is our only resource-it must be made ; and the voice of the nation must decide whether Protestantism or Popery shall prevail; whether, by treading in the footsteps of our forefathers, we will maintain the Protestant ascendancy which their practical wisdom established for us; or whether, to our eternal shame, to our certain punishment, we will see the Jesuits triumphant, and the idolatrous worship of Papists openly displayed throughout this now Protestant land. In short, the nation must decide whether these kingdoms shall be at once the cradle and the citadel of Protestantism and real liberty, or the hot-bed of Popery, with its scarlet train of mental and political despotism.

We are now arrived at the period when we are compelled to judge and act for ourselves; the bane and antidote are before us; our choice must be made; we must now decide whether we will rånge ourselves with Protestants or Papists-whether we will serve God or mammon.

[ocr errors]

Nothing is to be expected from parliament, because nothing is to be done by the government; nothing is to be done by the government, because neutrality, conciliation, and modern liberality are still ruling the deliberations of the cabinet. Thus the honesty and virtuous feeling for which this country has long been renowned are decreed to be neutralised and deadened; religion and morality, principle, patriotism, and the boasted constitution, are doomed to perish from steer inattention.

But will our fellow Protestants commit this suicide? Why is the nation listless, apathetic, and dead, to every patriotic impulse? Why are virtue and vice, right and wrong, amalgamated as it were, and so blended together, that the one and the other possess an equal value? or rather I should correct myself, and say, why are the bad qualities predominant? why are the highest and noblest attributes of human nature outraged by a prescribed submission to bad measures, vicious systems, and detestable principles? The cause, I fear, may be thus explained. For years past the go

vernment of the country have thought fit blindly to adopt, and obstinately to persevere in, a system of neutrality which has gradually produced the most deadly evil that can befall a nationa loss of principle. It is in vain to say that this or that cause has produced this or that bad effect; that the march of intellect, the spread of knowlege, or philosophy, or liberality, or any of those jargonic explicatives, the very sound of which makes the heart sick, have brought the nation into its present state; it is not so we must put the saddle on the right horse, and I assert openly that the government has done the work. There may, indeed, have been a predisposition to these delusive theories on the part of some restless speculators; but to the government belongs the blame, and the government must bear it.

In 1807 the voice of the nation rejected an administration, strong in talent, but weak in the possession of the public confidence. An overwhelming feeling confirmed the power of its successor, which was proudly and triumphantly favored by po. pular support, because it was supposed to be purely Protestant, to be pledged to oppose Popery, and to support the national affections, the national interests. Nobly and most beneficially did this administration execute its duty, opposing Popery, upholding Protestantism, supporting the national interests, cherishing the established religion, encouraging national morality as well by its example as by its care, boldly defending the constitution, and preserving it uninjured in church or state from the united attacks of dangerous and desperate men, and, above all things, keeping this leading object in view-that it is the duty of a government to act towards the nation as a good father of a family would act towards his family, namely, by the establishment of public virtue founded on public principle. The admirable Perceval knew well by experience, and thus foresaw, that, because it is worthless, nothing can be lasting that is not founded on principled virtue ; that no nation can endure and prosper without it: that other nations had suffered the severest retributive justice for their national crimes; and that we evidently owed our comparative exemption from the horrors which the divine vengeance poured on those devoted countries, to our own comparative exemption from the vices and corruption which prevailed in them. Taking for his motto that honesty is the best policy, the straightforward, intelligible, and defined policy of the minister gained the applause even of his opponents; whilst his friends, sure of his support and encouragement in their endeavor to promote his generous measures for the public welfare, acted with spirit, union, and confidence.

Thus we continued blessed with an administration which acted on known principles, until in 1812 the same hand which deprived

Mr. Perceval of life extinguished also the light of the administration. We lost our virtuous, exemplary, and highly-gifted minister, and from that time our moral decline commenced. Then began the accursed system of liberalism, neutrality, and concilia-` tion-right and wrong, virtue and vice, the friend and the enemy of his country, were to be confounded-distinctions were to be levelled-all was to bend to expediency, and principle must not stand in the way of policy.

of

Could any one mistake what would be the sure consequence such a vile system? Assuredly, as it has happened, it would follow that the country would be gradually demoralised. What before seemed odious or immoral, no longer disgusted; all ancient institutions began to be considered as rubbish; history as an old almanack; experience was to be cast away; all that is valuable to us was to be vilified, derided, and trampled on; and finally, liberality enthroned itself in the chief seat to influence, and directed the counsels of the nation. The country now found itself without guides, although it had a government; the high offices were filled, it is true, but not by governors. The executive was in other hands. Instead of resisting innovation, they yielded to it; instead of leading public opinion, they bowed to its counterfeit; and thus quackery, deceit, and hollow pretension gained so much strength, that their opponents were almost obliged to hide their diminished heads. Then followed the effects of this contemptible system. The depraved, the disaffected, and the selfopinionated, are always the most noisy and turbulent. They clamored; they made themselves to be heard; finding their strength, and presuming on their acquired consequence, they artfully contrived, through the administration, in fact, to rule the state; and the administration, preferring place and irresponsible tranquillity to a noble rejection of either, when principle is at stake, suffered our constitutional excellence, and all that has been hitherto deemed most sacred or most valuable, to perish, for want of encouragement and protection; whilst the designing liberalist gloried in his success, and chuckled at the impending misfortunes which he well knew would result from such a total revolution in the government and constitution of the country.

I have endeavored, as much as possible, to abbreviate and compress this description into the smallest compass compatible with an intelligible statement of my view of this cardinal point. If we know where error lies, we may correct, perhaps eradicate it. I have undisguisedly stated what I conceive to be its origin, growth, and maturation; and I have for this purpose attempted to sketch my view of cause and effect up to the present time.

I shall omit all farther comment, and proceed at once to the

change of ministry in January last. Every heart beat with high expectation every patriot rejoiced in the anticipated appointment of the Duke of Wellington to the head of affairs. The lover of his country fondly hoped that the time had at last arrived when an end would be put to the hateful system of liberalism, neutrality, and conciliation; he made sure that the high character which had formerly distinguished the nation would be recovered; and that, in the place of national demoralisation, a new system would be established, calculated to restore the national energy, by an undeviating rectitude of principle, the character of which would be stamped by the uncompromising character of the government. We all know how the result fulfilled our anxious expectations.

The last session of parliament I consider to have been by far the most disastrous of any in the memory of man; it was pre-eminently stained by liberalising religion-and this I believe from my conscience to be a fatal stab to the established church, as well as to the peace of the country and the existence of the constitution.

By an utter dereliction of principle we have sought to appease those who are actuated by no principle but a hatred of order-we thus depress and disgust our most valuable friends-we invest our enemies with the power taken from our friends—and, to fill up the measure of our misdoing, we offend our God in the disowning of Christianity.

I simply ask, if we desert our God, will he not desert us-will he not be avenged on such a nation as this?

An inaction totally inexplicable possesses the government. We see rebellion stalk through the land with impunity-conciliation still reigns in our councils. The Popish association, day after day, audaciously asserts its omnipotence, and proclaims aloud that it will yield to no other authority. One of their membersa fellow who years since deserved to be hanged for his treasonhas, through this means, been chosen to sit in a British parliament, although a Papist. Itinerant Popish demagogues are roaming through the country, spouting sedition and treason; and who offers the slightest opposition to all this? No one.

What, I ask, is to prevent traitors from rising in every marketplace of every town of Great Britain, to vomit forth their pestilent harangues? or are such wretches only to be allowed this exclusive privilege in Ireland? Shame, shame on the government which can for an hour, for a minute, permit such dangerous excesses to be practised with blind impunity! I am unwilling to inculpate our chief minister, because I had rested my last principal hope on him; my expectation was, that Nelson's memorable recommen

« AnteriorContinuar »