A LETTER ΤΟ SIR CHARLES BINGHAM, BART., ON THE IRISH ABSENTEE TAX 1. DEAR SIR, I AM much flattered by your very obliging letter, and the rather because it promises an opening to our future correspondence. This may be my only indemnification for very great losses. One of the most odious parts of the proposed Absentee Tax is its tendency to separate friends, and to make as ugly breaches in private society, as it must make in the unity of the great political body. I am sure, that much of the satisfaction of some circles in London will be lost by it. Do you think, that our friend Mrs. Vesey will suffer her husband to vote for a tax, that is to destroy the evenings at Bolton Row? I trust we shall have other supporters of the same sex, equally powerful, and equally deserving to be so, who will not abandon the common cause of their own liberties and our satisfactions. We shall be barbarized on both sides of the water, if we do not see one another now and then. We shall sink into surly, brutish Johns, and you will degenerate into wild Irish. is impossible that we should be the wiser, or the more agreeable; certainly we shall not love one another the better for this forced separation, which our ministers, who have already done so much for the dissolution of every other sort of good connexion, are now meditating for the further improvement of this too well united empire. Their next step will be to encourage all the colonies, It 1 From authentic documents, found with the copy of this Letter among Mr. Burke's papers, it appears, that in the year 1773 a project of imposing a tax upon all proprietors of landed estates in Ireland, whose ordinary residence should be in Great Britain, had been adopted and avowed by his majesty's ministers at that time. A remonstrance against this measure, as highly unjust and impolitic, was presented to the ministers by several of the principal Irish absentees, and the project was subsequently abandoned. about thirty separate governments, to keep their people from all intercourse with each other, and with the mother country. A gentleman of New York, or Barbadoes, will be as much gazed at as a strange animal from Nova Zembla or Otaheite; and those rogues the travellers will tell us what stories they please about poor old Ireland. In all seriousness (though I am a great deal more than half serious in what I have been saying) I look upon this projected tax in a very evil light; I think it is not advisable; I am sure it is not necessary; and as it is not a mere matter of finance, but involves a political question of much importance, I consider the principle and precedent as far worse than the thing itself. You are too kind in imagining I can suggest any thing new upon the subject. The objections to it are very glaring, and must strike the eyes of all those who have not their reasons for shutting them against evident truth. I have no feelings or opinions on this subject which I do not partake with all the sensible and informed people that I meet with. At first I could scarcely meet with any one who could believe that this scheme originated from the English government. They considered it not only as absurd, but as something monstrous and unnatural. In the first instance, it strikes at the power of this country; in the end, at the union of the whole empire. I do not mean to express, most certainly I do not entertain in my mind, any thing invidious concerning the superintending authority of Great Britain. But if it be true, that the several bodies, which make up this complicated mass, are to be preserved as one empire, an authority sufficient to preserve that unity, and by its equal weight and pressure to consolidate the various parts that compose it, must reside somewhere: that somewhere can only be in England. Possibly any one member, distinctly taken, might decide in favour of that residence within itself; but certainly no member would give its voice for any other except this. So that I look upon the residence of the supreme power to be settled here; not by force, or tyranny, or even by mere long usage, but by the very nature of things, and the joint consent of the whole body. If all this be admitted, then without question this country must have the sole right to the imperial legislation: by which I mean that law which regulates the polity and economy of the several parts, as they relate to one another and to the whole. But if any of the parts, which (not for oppression but for order) are placed in a subordinate situation, will assume to themselves the power of hindering or checking the resort of their municipal subjects to the centre, or even to any other part of the empire, they arrogate to themselves the imperial rights, which do not, which cannot, belong to them, and, so far as in them lies, destroy the happy arrangement of the entire empire. A free communication, by discretionary residence, is necessary to all the other purposes of communication. For what purpose are the Irish and plantation laws sent hither, but as means of preserving this sovereign constitution? Whether such a constitution was originally right or wrong, this is not the time of day to dispute. If any evils arise from it, let us not strip it of what may be useful in it. By taking the English privy council into your legislature, you obtain a new, a further, and, possibly, a more liberal consideration of all your acts. If a local legislature shall by oblique means tend to deprive any of the people of this benefit, and shall make it penal to them to follow into England the laws which may affect them, then the English privy council will have to decide upon your acts without those lights, that may enable them to judge upon what grounds you made them, or how far they ought to be modified, received, or rejected. To what end is the ultimate appeal in judicature lodged in this kingdom, if men may be disabled from following their suits here, and may be taxed into an absolute denial of justice? You observe, my dear sir, that I do not assert that, in all cases, two shillings will necessarily cut off this means of correcting legislative and judicial mistakes, and thus amount to a denial of justice. I might indeed state cases, in which this very quantum of tax would be fully sufficient to defeat this right. But I argue not on the case, but on the principle, and I am sure the principle implies it. They who may restrain, may prohibit. They who may impose two shillings, may impose ten shillings, in the pound; and those who may condition the tax to six months' annual absence, may carry that condition to six weeks, or even to six days, and thereby totally defeat the wise means which have been provided for extensive and impartial justice, and for orderly, well-poised, and well-connected government. What is taxing the resort to and residence in any place, but declaring that your connexion with that place is a grievance? Is not such an Irish tax, as is now proposed, a virtual declaration that England is a foreign country, and a renunciation on your part of the principle of common naturalization, which runs through this whole empire? Do you, or does any Irish gentleman, think it a mean privilege that, the moment he sets his foot upon this ground, he is to all intents and purposes an Englishman? You will not be pleased with a law, which by its operation tends to disqualify you from a seat in this parliament; and if your own virtue or fortune, or if |