scene of mean and precipitate
submission which disgraced you before America, and before the
volunteers of Ireland. We shall live to hear the Hampstead Protestant
pronouncing such extravagant panegyrics upon holy water, and paying
such fulsome compliments to the thumbs and offals of departed saints,
that parties will change sentiments, and Lord Henry Petty and Sam
Whitbread take a spell at No Popery. The wisdom of Mr. Fox was alike
employed in teaching his country justice when Ireland was weak, and
dignity when Ireland was strong. We are fast pacing round the same
miserable circle of ruin and imbecility. Alas! where is our guide?

You say that Ireland is a millstone about our necks; that it would be
better for us if Ireland were sunk at the bottom of the sea; that the
Irish are a nation of irreclaimable savages and barbarians. How often
have I heard these sentiments fall from the plump and thoughtless
squire, and from the thriving English shopkeeper, who has never felt
the rod of an Orange master upon his back. Ireland a millstone about
your neck! Why is it not a stone of Ajax in your hand? I agree with
you most cordially that, governed as Ireland now is, it would be a
vast accession of strength if the waves of the sea were to rise and
engulf her to-morrow. At this moment, opposed as we are to all the
world, the annihilation of one of the most fertile islands on the face
of the globe, containing five millions of human creatures, would be
one of the most solid advantages which could happen to this country. I
doubt very much, in spite of all the just abuse which has been
lavished upon Bonaparte, whether there is any one of his conquered
countries the blotting out of which would be as beneficial to him as
the destruction of Ireland would be to us: of countries I speak
differing in language from the French, little habituated to their
intercourse, and inflamed with all the resentments of a recently
conquered people. Why will you attribute the turbulence of our people
to any cause but the right--to any cause but your own scandalous
oppression? If you tie your horse up to a gate, and beat him cruelly,
is he vicious because he kicks you? If you have plagued and worried a
mastiff dog for years, is he mad because he flies at you whenever he
sees you? Hatred is an active, troublesome passion. Depend upon it,
whole nations have always some reason for their hatred. Before you
refer the turbulence of the Irish to incurable defects in