The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-11 00:00:00

Greek

REPEAL OF THE UNION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In my letter to you of the 7th current, on
the subject of a Repeal of the Legislative Union
between Great Britain and Ireland, which you did
me the favour to insert in your impartial and ably-
conducted Journal of the•Bth, I gave it as my de-
liberate opinion, that a Repeal of the Union, whilst
it would weaken and distract England, would be
productive of mischief—of incalculable evil to Ire-
land herself. Every thing I see—every word I
hear—every sentence I read, having any reference
to passing events in Ireland, confirms me in that
opinion. Should a Repeal of the Union be carried—
should Ministers, by resorting to brute force, in-
stead of reforming abuses, render the passing of the
measure inevitable—should the ignorant clamour
of Ireland being an incumbrance, a birchen to this
country, prevail to such an extent as to rouse the
prejudices, and warp the judgment of the represen-
'atives of the people, who is there so blind as not
to sce in the new organization of the people of
Ireland—in the Irish VOLUNTEERS ! and the Irish
Brunswick ASSOCIATIONS 1 the embryo of int:lmal
division, mutual hate, and subsequent mutual mas-
sacre ? And who is there that does not see in the
O'Connells, and the Boytons, by whom they are
organized, the Tamerlanes and Bajazets, for whose
self aggrandisement, as well as self revenge, the
tragedy will be performed ?
In my former letter, to which I have referred, I
stated that one of the most necessary Reforms to be
effected in Ireland would be an immediate Reform
in the Established Church. I am the more desirous
that this Reform should precede the others, from
knowing that its effect in restoring harmony to an
agitated people, will be greater than all the others
I have pointed out, put together. Irishmen, from
the highest to the humblest in society, know how
dear the Established Church abuses are to the
Aristocracy of this country, as a means of providing
for those of their offspring horn too late to be Lords,
and with natures too pusillanimous to be soldiers;
and therefore if the Church be reformed they will

take it as an earnest of England's sincerity—of her
desire to do them justice.
But my principal reason for wishing to see the
Irish Church reformed, as a means of quashing the
shouts for repeal, is from my conviction that it
would bring over many of those conditional re-
pealers to support the Government, and above all
would enlist the whole of the Catholic clergy in the
cause of an administration evincing or manifesting
an inclination to do away with the necessity of a
domestic Legislature. There are doubtless, bigots
and blockheads, in this country, who would recom-
mend a civil war sooner than accept the assistance
of this body, but that matters not. The Munster
courage, and Cromwellian cant of Harcourt Lees,
and preaching Perceval, have too long had the un-
divided attention of unsuspecting John Bull. He
must be the veriest of fools that will risque the loss
of his possessions rather than sacrifice a prejudice
which can only be worn as a badge of ignorance.
The Catholic clergy are at present the only
body in Ireland that possess the power of neu-
tralizing every attempt of Mr. O'Connell's to
carry the repeal of the Union; and that power
they will not use for the proper purpose,
until the Government reform the Church. Nor
ought they to be blamed for thus declining to
interfere. The situation they hold, the place they
fill in society, and the relation in which they stand
to their confiding hearers, alike forbid them to sup-
port the Government so long as its attention to the
people committed to their care exceeds not the col-
lection of taxes, and the granting to strangers—to
shepherds who know not the sheep, and whose
voice the sheep refuse to recognise—the power of
robbing—of fleecing them. So long as the Govern-
ment answers every appeal for justice, on the part
of the Irish peasantry, by pointing to thirty thousand
soldiers armed with instruments of death ;—so long
as the pleading of conscience is the signal for the
discharge of musketry ;—so long as the present
welfare, and eternal happiness of a people is made
subservient to the whim, caprice, and humour of a
self-elected, self-styled head of the Church, without
regard to the feelings, desires, and wishes of those
whose interests are involved, the Catholic clergy are
justified in declining all interference in adjusting dif-
ferences between the people and their rulers. Ne-
vertherless, let England only give them a proof of a
sincere desire to ameliorate the condition of Ireland,
and their efforts to quiet the country will soon be
followed by the most happy results.
To a mind deeply impressed with the proper spirit
and early imbued with the pure sentiments of re-
ligion, there is hardly a more melancholy reflection
than what accompanies the serious consideration of
the past and present state of the Established Church
in Ireland. In the annals of Christian communities
it has no parallel, and seems to be kept up in defiance
of every suggestion of reason and dictate of utility,
as an imperishable monument of regal omnipotence.
Every thing connected with the Church in Ireland,
even the very site of many of the edifices, seem to
announce a miraculous power—an existence in de-
spite of the people. As this will sound oddly in
many ears, a few observations on what may be
termed a startling proposition, tending to explain it,
may here be very properly introduced.
Its the first place, then, let it be borne in mind,
that as most of the livings in the Irish Church are
in the gift of Trinity Colltge, the Crown, and a
few families of the aristocracy, they are invariably
bestowed on the sons of those who have signalised
themselves in preserving the Church; or, to speak
properly, who have distinguished themselves in op-
pressing the people. In Ireland the personal merit
of the candidate for Church preferment is never
taken into account; it is the merit of his father or
relations that decides for or against him. He may
be a Paul in piety and eloquence, and never be
noticed ; but let his father be a Ponsonby, or a
Beresford, or a Butler, or a Moore, and he is certain
of success. So generally does this feeling prevail,
that boys, whom you might as well set to remove
mountains as to render three sentences of English
into good Latin, will run over their every chance of
Church preferment by enumerating how many uncles
of theirs were engaged in crushing this or that re-
bellion, or in bringing this or that rebel to the rope!
Thus, from childhood the future pastor imbibes a
hatred of the people, and the family of which he is
descended is enough to make the hatred mutual.
" Again,in four cases out of five, it will be found,
on examination, that the clergy of the Established
Church in Ireland were neither born nor educated
in that country, though unquestionably of Irish
descent, and their parents annual pro tempore, or
cuckoo residents. Whatever predilections Papa
may have for the " Green Isle," Mamma is sure to
take cure that Master make his first appearance on
this side the water. As he grows up he is sent to
Eton, that he may learn to act like a Lord, and get
acquainted with the young Marquis of this or that,
whose father may have the disposal of a Bishopric.
Having been properly crammed by his tutor at Ox-
ford or Cambridge, and obtained a degree, he goes,
or is rather sent, to Ireland, with feelings similar to
those of a rich planter's heir in visiting the West
Indies. He has heard the people are but one re-
move above savages ; and, as he neither understands
their customs, nor has any interest in knowing
them, he at once sets them down as so many proofs
of barbarism. His house must be built after the
English style; his coat cut after the English
fashion ; his grounds and gardens laid out and orna-
mented after the English Taste; his household con-
ducted on English principles of domestic economy;
his very domestic animals of English breed ; and, in
a word, everything calculated to awake.' the slum-
bering, morbid sensibilities of a jealous, sensitive peo-
ple. When to this is added a gratuitously boasted
contempt for every thing Irish—and when the very
expression " Irish' is used when under the influence
of passion, to mark excess of depravity even in
brutes, need it be wondered that heart-burnings are
engendered, and that these in time are followed by
more tangible recriminations?
In the third place, one-fourth, or more, of the