one side of the debate has furnished me,
I must see things, and feel them too, as I see and feel them. I think I
can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant
ascendency, as they affect Ireland,--or of Indianism, as they affect
these countries, and as they affect Asia,--or of Jacobinism, as they
affect all Europe and the state of human society itself. The last is the
greatest evil. But it readily combines with the others, and flows from
them. Whatever breeds discontent at this time will produce that great
master-mischief most infallibly. Whatever tends to persuade the people
that the _few_, called by whatever name you please, religious or
political, are of opinion that their interest is not compatible with
that of the _many_, is a great point gained to Jacobinism. Whatever
tends to irritate the talents of a country, which have at all times, and
at these particularly, a mighty influence on the public mind, is of
infinite service to that formidable cause. Unless where Heaven has
mingled uncommon ingredients of virtue in the composition,--_quos
meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan,_--talents naturally gravitate to
Jacobinism. Whatever ill-humors are afloat in the state, they will be
sure to discharge themselves in a mingled torrent in the _Cloaca Maxima_
of Jacobinism. Therefore people ought well to look about them. First,
the physicians are to take care that they do nothing to irritate this
epidemical distemper. It is a foolish thing to have the better of the
patient in a dispute. The complaint or its cause ought to be removed,
and wise and lenient arts ought to precede the measures of vigor. They
ought to be the _ultima_, not the _prima_, not the _tota_ ratio of a
wise government. God forbid, that, on a worthy occasion, authority
should want the means of force, or the disposition to use it! But where
a prudent and enlarged policy does not precede it, and attend it too,
where the hearts of the better sort of people do not go with the hands
of the soldiery, you may call your Constitution what you will, in effect
it will consist of three parts, (orders, if you please,) cavalry,
infantry, and artillery,--and of nothing else or better. I agree with
you in your dislike of the discourses in Francis Street: but I like as
little some of those in College Green. I am even less pleased with the
temper that predominated in the latter, as better things might have been
expected in the regular family mansion of public