Chapter 9

trade, manufactures, exports and imports. "Ireland has the greatest possible facilities for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a circuit of 750 miles, 66 secure harbours, and presents a western frontier against Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance from 20 to 100 miles; so that the subjugation of Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with all its sinuosities, to more than 700 miles--an addition of polemics, in our present state of hostility with all the world, which must highly gratify the vigorists and give them an ample opportunity of displaying that foolish energy upon which their claims to distinction are founded. Such is the country which the Chancellor of the Exchequer would drive into the arms of France."

Religious freedom, continues Peter, is the strongest safeguard of states. France has it, and is victorious over Europe; England lacks it, and is in imminent peril. "How sincerely and fervently have I often wished that the Emperor of the French had thought as Mr. Spencer Perceval does upon the subject of government; that he had entertained doubts and scruples upon the propriety of admitting the Protestants to an equality of rights with the Catholics, and that he had left in the middle of his empire these vigorous seeds of hatred and disaffection. But the world was never yet conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first measures we saw him recurring to was the complete establishment of religious liberty. If his subjects fought and paid as he pleased, he allowed them to believe as they pleased. The moment I saw this, my best hopes were lost. I perceived in a moment the kind of man we had to do with. I was well aware of the miserable ignorance and folly of the country upon the subject of Toleration; and every year has been adding to the success of that game which it was clear he had the will and the ability to play against us."

Abraham has suggested that the Emperor is not a religious man, and that his tolerance is the fruit of indifference. But, says Peter, "if Bonaparte is liberal in subjects of religion because he has no religion, is this a reason why we should be illiberal because we are Christians? If he owes this excellent quality to a vice, is that any reason why we may not owe it to a virtue? Toleration is a great good, and a good to be imitated, let it come from whom it will."

And now Peter turns upon Lord Sidmouth,[55] who has been prophesying woe and destruction from the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. Such prophecies, he says, will, in the process of time, become matter of pleasantry even to "the sedulous housewife and the Rural Dean." There is always a copious supply of Lord Sidmouths in the world, and they have always uttered the most dismal predictions about every improvement in the lot of mankind.--

"Turnpike roads, navigable canals, inoculation, hops, tobacco, the Reformation, the Revolution--there are always a set of worthy and moderately-gifted men who bawl out death and ruin upon every valuable change which the varying aspect of human affairs absolutely and imperiously requires."

The only contention of poor Abraham which Peter will in the slightest degree accept, is that the emancipation of the Roman Catholics will alienate the Orangemen. But, even if this be the result of a just act, it is far less formidable than the result of continued injustice. Brother Abraham, "skilled in the arithmetic of Tithe," must perceive that it is better to have four friends and one enemy, than four enemies and one friend; and, the more violent the hatred of the Orangemen, the more certain the reconciliation of the Catholics. Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that the Orangemen carry their disaffection to the point of resistance, and brave the discipline of the law, the prospect has no terrors for Peter Plymley.--

"My love of poetical justice does carry me as far as that--one summer's whipping, only one; the thumb-screw for a short season; a little light, easy torturing between Lady Day and Michaelmas; a short specimen of Mr. Perceval's rigour. I have malice enough to ask this slight atonement for the groans and shrieks of the poor Catholics, unheard by any human tribunal, but registered by the Angel of God against their Protestant and enlightened oppressors."