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III Experience
II. Ireland
Belfast patriots
"We have not in our plan of reform paled so little
"parks of aristocracy. Our plan has not been described with a
"pair of compasses, nor have we defaced with childish circles
"the system of nature, and the chart of the Constitution.
"There is no truth in any political system, in which the sun
"of liberty is not placed in the centre, with knowledge to enlighten,
"and benevolence to warm and invigorate; with the
"same ray to guild the palace and illuminate the cottage.
"Sooner or later the measure must come. The
"eternal principle of justice will be repeated in louder and
"louder tones, until at length it must be heard and observed.
"Why not now? Why leave behind a source of new reforms,
"perhaps of convulsions?
"Contemplating this grateful prospect, we smile
"with much internal satisfaction, on hearing those intemperate
"and abusive expressions, which the members of opposition
"make use of against this Society. the smile at their
"inability to conceal the vexation and disappointment
"they have felt on finding themselves forsaken by the people
"(that people whose majesty they insult, but whose forbearance
"they at some times solicit); on finding themselves
"falling, like the ostentatious balloon, from that height, to
"which they had arisen by a sort of inflammable levity,
"and there sustained by the breath of popular favour.
"We smile at the curious coalition of political parties
"against our Society; to see them all club their wisdom
"and their wit to manifest to the whole country, that we are
"really formidable; but we are rather inclined to pity that
"forced fraternity, that monstrous conjunction, which, in spite
"of the horror of instinct, and the antipathy of nature, can join
"in one common effort the highest genius with the lowest ribaldry;
"how great must be the panic that can write
"such extremes! We can bear, as we have borne, the commonplace
"invective against this Society; but we feel in some indignation,
"when they, who should look on themselves as
"the purchased property of the people to whose fortune everyman
"even the beggar on the bridge has contributed
"whom the shouts of the mob have raised to the height
"of this fame; when such men inveigh against armed beggary
"and shabby sedition we can not but remember a
"time when the usual adjunct to their own names was
"shabby and seditious incendiaries. It is not manly, it is
"not decorous, to deal out this contumelious language against
"the great mass of mankind. The use of contemptuous
"terms, disposes of contemptuous treatment, and those
"whom we vilify as a mob we soon learn to slight as
"men. It is the unequal petition of rights and what
"results from this? The arrogance of power and the abasement
of poverty which make mob instigate to tumult and
goad to insurrection.
If
If the people were
respected, they would reverence
the constituted
authorities; but to gain
this respect, they must
profess those rights,
which are the prerogative
of their nature, and
the worth of mankind.
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Identifier: | JB/137/384/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 137.
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137 |
radicalism not dangerous |
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384 |
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001 |
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collectanea |
1 |
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recto |
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john flowerdew colls |
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47101 |
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