There is no spirit which you must alienate, no heart you must
avert. Every man must feel he has a country, and that there is an
urgent and pressing cause why he should expose himself to death."
Although Peter is so seriously concerned about the military disasters which
will fall on England unless she behaves more wisely to her Roman Catholic
population, he is not the least afraid of any dangers arising from the
Roman Catholic religion. England has done with it, once for all--
"Tell me that the world will return again under the influence of the
smallpox; that Lord Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power of the
court; that Lord Howick and Mr. Grattan will each of them do a mean
and dishonourable action; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale
speak will knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has
assented to the fact of two and two making four, without shedding
tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other
thing absurd or incredible, but, for the love of common sense, let me
hear no more of the danger to be apprehended from the general
diffusion of Popery. It is too absurd to be reasoned upon; every man
feels it is nonsense when he hears it stated, and so does every man
while he is stating it."
No, the only real danger which Peter sees--and this he sees with startling
clearness--is that Ireland will be absorbed by France, and will welcome her
deliverance from England; that the civil existence of England will be most
seriously imperilled; and that the Irish themselves will, in the long-run,
suffer grievously by the change,--
"Who can doubt but that Ireland will experience ultimately from France
a treatment to which the conduct they have experienced from England is
the love of a parent or a brother? Who can doubt that, five years
after he has got hold of the country, Ireland will be tossed by
Bonaparte as a present to some one of his ruffian generals, who will
knock the head of Mr.
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