and desperate
rebellions were those in which they enjoyed the greatest ease and the
most perfect tranquillity.

Such are the arguments that are used, both publicly and privately, in
every discussion upon this point. They are generally full of passion and
of error, and built upon facts which in themselves are most false. It
cannot, I confess, be denied, that those miserable performances which go
about under the names of Histories of Ireland do, indeed, represent
those events after this manner; and they would persuade us, contrary to
the known order of Nature, that indulgence and moderation in governors
is the natural incitement in subjects to rebel. But there is an interior
history of Ireland, the genuine voice of its records and monuments,
which speaks a very different language from these histories, from Temple
and from Clarendon: these restore Nature to its just rights, and policy
to its proper order. For they even now show to those who have been at
the pains to examine them, and they may show one day to all the world,
that these rebellions were not produced by toleration, but by
persecution,--that they arose not from just and mild government, but
from the most unparalleled oppression. These records will be far from
giving the least countenance to a doctrine so repugnant to humanity and
good sense as that the security of any establishment, civil or
religious, can ever depend upon the misery of those who live under it,
or that its danger can arise from their quiet and prosperity. God forbid
that the history of this or any country should give such encouragement
to the folly or vices of those who govern! If it can be shown that the
great rebellions of Ireland have arisen from attempts to reduce the
natives to the state to which they are now reduced, it will show that an
attempt to continue them in that state will rather be disadvantageous to
the public peace than any kind of security to it. These things have in
some measure begun to appear already; and as far as regards the argument
drawn from former rebellions, it will fall readily to the ground. But,
for my part, I think the real danger to every state is, to render its
subjects justly discontented; nor is there in polities or science any
more effectual secret for their security than to establish in their
people a firm opinion that no change can be for their advantage. It is
true that bigotry and fanaticism may for a time draw great multitudes of
people from a knowledge