ring
the period of crisis had fallen to lower depths than ever before or
since. Even incorruptible men were either weak and selfish or subject to
some cardinal defect of temper or intellect which, at times of crisis,
neutralized their genius. Chatham and Burke were the noblest figures of
the time, yet Chatham, in his highest mood a nobler and truer champion
of American liberty than Burke, was Minister--nominally, at any
rate--when the Revenue Duties imposed upon the American Colonies in 1867
destroyed in a moment the reconciliation brought about by the repeal of
the Stamp Act. Burke was surely false to his political philosophy in
founding his American argument on expedience rather than on principle.
Chatham was a thorough democrat, trusting the people, poor or rich, rude
or cultured, common or noble, American or British. Burke, at a time when
the reflection of the genuine opinion of the nation in a pure and free
Parliament might have saved us, as his splendid orations could not save
us, from a disastrous war, scouted Parliamentary reform, and took his
unconscious share in playing the game of the most narrow coercionist
Tories like Charles Townshend and George III.

Of the interminable chain of fatalities which sicken the mind in
following every phase of Ireland's history, Burke's rigid temperamental
conservatism always seems to me the most fatal and the most melancholy.
It is not that he, the greatest intellect Ireland has ever produced,
made his career in England. By the time one reaches the period in which
he lived one gets used to the expatriation of Irish brains and vigour,
not only to England and America, but to Spain, France, Russia, and
Germany. It is that his intellect was so constituted as in the long run
to be useless, and on some occasions absolutely harmful, to Ireland,
sincerely as he loved her, and often as he supported measures for her
temporary benefit, and rejoiced in their temporary success. An incident
occurred in 1773 which tested his worth to Ireland, and incidentally
threw into strong light English views of Ireland and America at the
period immediately preceding the revolutionary epoch. The Irish
Government, not with any high social aim, but in desperation at the
growing Treasury deficit, proposed a tax upon the rents of absentee
landlords, and the fate of the measure, like all Irish measures, had to
be decided in the first instance in England. North's Tory Ministry
actually consented to it. Chatha