generate to learn only from her example? and, be it fpoke with all the veneration poffible for fo excellent a fovereign, her beft endeavours in this weighty affair are a moft important part of her duty, as well as of her intereft, and her honour. But it must be confeffed, that, as things are now, every man thinks he has laid in a fufficient ftock of merit, and may pretend to any employment, provided he hath been loud and frequent in declaring himself hearty for the government. It is true, he is a man of pleaJure and a free-thinker, that is, in other words, he is profligate in his morals, and a despiser of religion; but, in point of party, he is one to be confided in; he is an affertor of liberty and property; he rattles it out against opery and arbitrary power, and prieftcraft, and high-church. It is enough: he is a perfon fully qualified for any employment in the court or the navy, the law or the revenue; where he will be fure to leave no arts untried of bribery, fraud, injuftice, oppreffion, that he can practife with any hope of impunity. No wonder fuch men are true to a government, where liberty runs high, where property, however attained, is fo well fecured, and where the administration is at least fo gentle it is impoffible they could chufe any other conftitution, without changing to their lofs. Fidelity to a prefent establishment is indeed the principal means to defend it from a foreign enemy, but without other qualifications will not prevent corruptions from within, and ftates are more often ruined by these than the other. To conclude: whether the proposals I have offered towards a reformation, be fuch as are most prudent and convenient, may probably be a question; but it is none at all, whether fome reformation be abfolutely neceffary; because the nature of things is fuch, that, if abufes be not remedied, they will certainly increafe, nor ever ftop till they end in the fubversion of a commonwealth. As there muft always of neceffity be fome corruptions, fo in a well-inftituted state the executive power will be always contending against them, by reducing things (as Machiavel fpeaks) to their firft principles, never letting abufes grow inveterate, or multiply fo far that it will be hard to find remedies, and perhaps impoffible to apply them. As he, that would keep his houfe in repair, muft attend every little breach or flaw, and fupply it immediately, else time will bring all to ruin; how much more the common accidents of ftorms and rain? he must live in perpetual danger of his house falling about his ears; and will find it cheaper to throw it quite down, and build it again from the ground, perhaps upon a new foundation, or at least in a new form, which may neither be fo fafe nor fo convenient as the old. A LET Received your letter, wherein you tell me of the ftrange reprefentations made of us on your fide of the water. The inftance you are pleased to mention is that of the preterian miffionary, who, according to your phrafe, hath been lately perfecuted at Drogheda for his religion : 1 * This tract was reprinted in Ireland in 1735, when the attempt to repeal the facramental test was revived. There was an explanatory advertisement prefixed, རྡོ : religion but it is eafy to obferve, how mighty induftrious fome people have been, for three or four years paft, to hand about stories of the hardships, the merits, the number, and the power of the prefbyterians in Ireland, to raife formidable ideas of the dangers of popery there, and to tranfinit all for England, improved by great additions, and with special care to have them inferted with comments in those infamous weekly papers, that infeft your coffee-houses. So, when the clause enacting a facramental teft was put in execution, it was given out in England, that half the juftices of the peace through this kingdom had laid down their commiffions: whereas, upon examination, the whole number was found to amount only to a dozen or thirteen, and those generally of the lowest rate in fortune and understanding, and fome of them fuperannu ated. So, when the earl of Pembroke was in Ireland, and the parliament fitting, a formal fory was very gravely carried to his excellency by fome zealous members, of a pricft newly arrived from abroad to the north-west parts prefixed, which is faid by lord Orrery to have been dictated, or strictly revifed, by the Dean himself: but there are inaccuracies in it, which may well be thought fufficient to deftroy its authenticity: that which in the first paragraph is called the following treatife is afterwards faid to be an extract of a difcourfe, and it is immediately added, that this extract is the whole, except fome paffages of no confequences thefe are included in a parenthesis, parts of Ireland, who had publicly preached to his people to fall a murthering the protef tants; which, though invented to ferve an end they were then upon, and are still driving at, was prefently handed over, and printed with fhrewed remarks by your worthy fcribblers. In like manner the account of that perfon, who was lately expelled our univerfity for reflecting on the memory of king William; what a duft it raised, and how foully it was related, is fresh enough in memory. Neither would people be convinced till the university was at the pains of publishing a Latin paper to justify themselves. And, to mention no more, this story of the perfecution at Drogheda, how it hath been fpread and aggravated, what confequences have been drawn from it, and what reproaches fixed on those who have leaft deferved them, we are already informed. Now, if the end of all this proceeding were a fecret and mystery, I fhould not pretend to give it an interpretation; but fufficient care hath been taken to explain it, firft, by addreffes artificially (if not illegally) procured, to fhew the miferable ftate of the diffenters in Ireland by reafon of the facramental teft, and to defire the queen's interceffion, that it might be repealed. Then, it is manifeft, that * fpeaker, when he was last year in England, follicited in perfon feveral members of both houses to have it repealed by an act there; though our *Mr. Allen Broderick, afterwards chancellor of Ireland, and lord Middleton. |