I was better heard. On the whole, I found him well disposed.

As soon as I had returned to the country, this affair lay so much on my mind, and the absolute necessity of Government's making a serious business of it, agreeably to the seriousness they professed, and the object required; that I wrote to Sir G. Cooper, to remind him of the principles, upon which we went in our conversation, and to press the plan, which was suggested for carrying them into execution. He wrote to me on the 20th, and assured me, "that Lord North had given all "due attention and respect to what you said to him "on Friday, and will pay the same respect to the "sentiments conveyed in your Letter; every thing you say or write on the subject undoubtedly de"mands it." Whether this was mere civility, or showed any thing effectual in their intentions, time, and the success of this measure, will show. It is wholly with them; and if it should fail, you are a witness, that nothing on our part has been wanting to free so large a part of our fellow-subjects and fellow-citizens from slavery; and to free Government from the weakness and danger of ruling them by force. As to my own particular part, the desire of doing this has betrayed me into a step, which I cannot perfectly reconcile to myself. You are to judge how far, on the circumstances, excused. I think it had a good effect.

it may be. You may

be

be assured, that I made this communication in a manner effectually to exclude so false and groundless an idea, as that I confer with you, any more than I confer with them, on any party principle whatsoever; or that in this affair we look further than the measure, which is in profession, and I am sure, ought to be in reason, theirs. I am ever, with the sincerest affection and esteem,

My dear Sir,

Your most faithful

and obedient humble Servant, EDMUND BURKE.

Beaconsfield,

18th July 1778.

I intended to have written sooner, but it has not

been in my power.

To the Speaker of the

House of Commons of Ireland

VOL. IX.

A LETTER

ΤΟ

I

THOMAS BURGH ESQ.*

My dear Sir,

Do not know in what manner I am to thank you properly for the very friendly solicitude you have been so good as to express for my reputation. The concern you have done me the honour to take in my affairs will be an ample indemnity from all, that I may suffer from the rapid judgments of those, who choose to form their opinions of men, not from the life, but from their portraits in a newspaper. I confess to you, that my frame of mind is so constructed, I have in me so little of the constitution of a great man, that I am more gratified with a very moderate share of approbation from

* Mr. Thomas Burgh, of Old Town, was a member of the House of Commons in Ireland.

It appears from a Letter written by this gentleman to Mr. Burke, 24 December, 1779, and to which the following is an answer, that the part Mr. Burke had taken in the discussion, which the affairs of Ireland had undergone in the preceding Sessions of Parliament in England, had been grossly misre presented, and much censured in Ireland.

those

those few, who know me, than I should be with the most clamorous applause from those multitudes, who love to admire at a due distance.

I am not, however, stoick enough to be able to affirm with truth, or hypocrite enough affectedly to pretend, that I am wholly unmoved at the difficulty, which you, and others of my friends in Ireland, have found in vindicating my conduct towards my native country. It undoubtedly hurts me in some degree; but the wound is not very deep. If I had sought popularity in Ireland, when, in the cause of that country, I was ready to sacrifice, and did sacrifice, a much nearer, a much more immediate, and a much more advantageous, popularity here, I should find myself perfectly unhappy; because I should be totally disappointed in my expectations; because I should discover, when it was too late, what common sense might have told me very early, that I risked the capital of my fame in the most disadvantageous lottery in the world. But I acted then, as I act now, and as I hope I shall act always, from a strong impulse of right, and from motives, in which popularity, either here or there, has but a very little part.

With the support of that consciousness I can bear a good deal of the coquetry of publick opinion, which has her caprices, and must have her way-Miseri, quibus intentata nitet! I too have had my holiday of popularity in Ireland. I have even

heard of an intention to erect a statuc*. I believe my intimate acquaintance know how little that idea. was encouraged by me; and I was sincerely glad, that it never took effect. Such honours belong exclusively to the tomb-the natural and only period of human inconstancy, with regard either to desert or to opinion for they are the very same hands, which erect, that very frequently (and sometimes with reason enough) pluck down the statue. Had such an unmerited and unlooked-for compliment been paid to me two years ago, the fragments of the piece might, at this hour, have the advantage of seeing actual service, while they were moving, according to the law of projectiles, to the windows of the Attorney General, or of my old friend Mouk Mason.

To speak seriously,-let me assure you, my dear Sir, that though I am not permitted to rejoice at all its effects, there is not one man on your side of the water more pleased to see the situation of Ireland so prosperous, as that she can afford to throw away her friends. She has obtained, solely by her own efforts, the fruits of a great victory; which I am very ready to allow, that the best efforts of her best well-wishers here could not have done for her so effectually in a great number of

years; and,

This intention was communicated to Mr. Burke, in a Letter from Mr. Perry, the Speaker of the House of Commons in Ireland.

perhaps,