axim,
that a residence in Great Britain is a political evil, and to be
discouraged by penal taxes, you must necessarily reject all the
privileges and benefits which are connected with such a residence.

I can easily conceive that a citizen of Dublin, who looks no further
than his counter, may think that Ireland will be repaid for such a loss
by any small diminution of taxes, or any increase in the circulation of
money that may be laid out in the purchase of claret or groceries in his
corporation. In such a man an error of that kind, as it would be
natural, would be excusable. But I cannot think that any educated man,
any man who looks with an enlightened eye on the interest of Ireland,
can believe that it is not highly for the advantage of Ireland, that
this Parliament, which, whether right or wrong, whether we will or not,
will make some laws to bind Ireland, should always have in it some
persons who by connection, by property, or by early prepossessions and
affections, are attached to the welfare of that country. I am so clear
upon this point, not only from the clear reason of the thing, but from
the constant course of my observation, by now having sat eight sessions
in Parliament, that I declare it to you as my sincere opinion, that (if
you must do either the one or the other) it would be wiser by far, and
far better for Ireland, that some new privileges should attend the
estates of Irishmen, members of the two Houses here, than that their
characters should be stained by penal impositions, and their properties
loaded by unequal and unheard-of modes of taxation. I do really trust,
that, when the matter comes a little to be considered, a majority of our
gentlemen will never consent to establish such a principle of
disqualification against themselves and their posterity, and, for the
sake of gratifying the schemes of a transitory administration of the
cockpit or the castle, or in compliance with the lightest part of the
most vulgar and transient popularity, fix so irreparable an injury on
the permanent interest of their country.

This law seems, therefore, to me to go directly against the fundamental
points of the legislative and judicial constitution of these kingdoms,
and against the happy communion of their privileges. But there is
another matter in the tax proposed, that contradicts as essentially a
very great principle necessary for preserving the union of the various
parts of a state; because it does, in effect,