Chapter 8

hopes for the salvation of England in the "discretion" and "sound sense" of Mr. Secretary Canning.--

"To call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest lustre, I do most readily admit.... The Foreign Secretary is a gentleman--a respectable as well as a highly agreeable man in private life; but you may as well feed me with decayed potatoes as console me for the miseries of Ireland by the resources of his 'sense' and his 'discretion.' It is only the public situation which this gentleman holds that entitles me or induces me to say so much about him. He is a fly in amber: nobody cares about the fly; the only question is, How the devil did it get there? Nor do I attack him from the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province."

Under the rule of Canning and his colleagues, Ireland has become utterly disloyal.--

"The great mass of the Catholic population, upon the slightest appearance of a French force in that country, would rise upon you to a man. There is no loyalty among the Catholics: they detest you as their worst oppressors, and they will continue to detest you till you remove the cause of their hatred. It is in your power in six months' time to produce a total revolution of opinions among these people.... At present see what a dreadful state Ireland is in! The common toast among the low Irish is, 'The Feast of the _Pass-over_.' Some allusion to Bonaparte, in a play lately acted at Dublin, produced thunders of applause from the pit and the galleries; and _a politician should not be inattentive to the public feelings expressed in theatres_. Mr. Perceval thinks he has disarmed the Irish. He has no more disarmed the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters the lock, buries it in a bog, and allows the Orange bloodhound to ransack his cottage at pleasure. Be just and kind to the Irish, and you will indeed disarm them; rescue them from the degraded servitude in which they are held by an handful of their own countrymen; and you will add four millions of brave and affectionate men to your strength."

But instead of these wise remedies, Mr. Secretary Canning only offers the Irish people his incessant, unseasonable, and sometimes indecent jokes.--

"He jokes upon neutral flags and frauds, jokes upon Irish rebels, jokes upon northern and western and southern foes, and gives himself no trouble upon any subject.... And this is the Secretary whose genius, in the estimation of brother Abraham, is to extinguish the genius of Bonaparte. Pompey was killed by a slave, Goliath smitten by a stripling; Pyrrhus died by the hand of a woman. Tremble, thou great Gaul, from whose head an armed Minerva leaps forth in the hour of danger; tremble, thou scourge of God, for a pleasant man is come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes."

Abraham comforts himself with his reflection that Bonaparte has no ships or sailors. But, says Peter, there are quite enough remains of the navies of France, Spain, Holland, and Denmark, for such a short excursion as would be needed for the capture of Ireland. And Bonaparte can increase his forces every day. With all Europe at his feet, he can get timber and stores and men to any conceivable amount. "He is at present the despotic monarch of above twenty thousand miles of sea-coast, and yet you suppose he cannot procure sailors for the invasion of Ireland." Ireland is still the burden of the song. Conciliate Ireland and all will be well. Tyrannize over her and we are undone.

"If Ireland was friendly, we might equally set at defiance the talents of Bonaparte and the blunders of his rival Mr. Canning: we could then support the ruinous and silly bustle of our useless expeditions, and the almost incredible ignorance of our commercial Orders in Council.[53] Let the present administration give up but this one point, and there is nothing which I would not consent to grant them. Perceval should have full liberty to insult the tomb of Mr. Fox, and to torment every eminent Dissenter in Great Britain. Lord Camden should have large boxes of plums; Mr. Rose receive permission to prefix to his name the appellation of Virtuous; and to the Viscount Castlereagh a round sum of ready money shall be well and truly paid into his hand.[54] Lastly, what remains to Mr. George Canning, but that he ride up and down Pall Mall glorious upon a white horse, and that they cry out before him, 'Thus shall it be done to the statesman who hath written _The Needy Knife-Grinder_'?"