ecution of a great criminal, and the escape
of Hastings, more guilty and more fortunate than Verres, from the
punishment he merited, through legal technicalities, the apathy of men
in power, the private influence of the throne, and the sympathies which
fashion excited in his behalf,--and, more than all, because of the
undoubted service he had rendered to his country, if it _was_ a service
to extend her rule by questionable means to the farthermost limits of
the globe. I need not speak of the obloquy which Burke incurred from the
press, which teemed with pamphlets and books and articles to undermine
his great authority, all in the interests of venal and powerful
monopolists. Nor did he escape the wrath of the electors of Bristol,--a
narrow-minded town of India traders and Negro dealers,--who withdrew
from him their support. He had been solicited, in the midst of his
former eclat, to represent this town, rather than the "rotten borough"
of Wendover; and he proudly accepted the honor, and was the idol of his
constituents until he presumed to disregard their instructions in
matters of which he considered they were incompetent to judge. His
famous letter to the electors, in which he refutes and ridicules their
claim to instruct him, as the shoemakers of Lynn wished to instruct
Daniel Webster, is a model of irony, as well as a dignified rebuke of
all ignorant constituencies, and a lofty exposition of the duties of a
statesman rather than of a politician.

He had also incurred the displeasure of the Bristol electors by his
manly defence of the rights of the Irish Catholics, who since the
conquest of William III. had been subjected to the most unjust and
annoying treatment that ever disgraced a Protestant government. The
injustices under which Ireland groaned were nearly as repulsive as the
cruelties inflicted upon the Protestants of France during the reign of
Louis XIV. "On the suppression of the rebellion under Tyrconnel," says
Morley, "nearly the whole of the land was confiscated, the peasants were
made beggars and outlaws, the Penal Laws against Catholics were
enforced, and the peasants were prostrate in despair." Even in 1765 "the
native Irish were regarded by their Protestant oppressors with exactly
that combination of intense contempt and loathing, rage and terror,
which his American counterpart would have divided between the Indian and
the Negro." Not the least of the labors of Burke was to bring to the
attention of the