were won and lost after ten years' hard fighting; when armies were
commanded by the sons of kings, and campaigns passed in an
interchange of civil letters and ripe fruit; and for these laws,
when the whole state of the world is completely changed, we are now,
according to my Lord Hawkesbury, to hold ourselves ready to perish.
It is no mean misfortune, in times like these, to be forced to say
anything about such men as Lord Hawkesbury, and to be reminded that
we are governed by them, but as I am driven to it, I must take the
liberty of observing that the wisdom and liberality of my Lord
Hawkesbury are of that complexion which always shrinks from the
present exercise of these virtues by praising the splendid examples
of them in ages past. If he had lived at such periods, he would
have opposed the Revolution by praising the Reformation, and the
Reformation by speaking handsomely of the Crusades. He gratifies
his natural antipathy to great and courageous measures by playing
off the wisdom and courage which have ceased to influence human
affairs against that wisdom and courage which living men would
employ for present happiness. Besides, it happens unfortunately for
the Warden of the Cinque Ports, that to the principal incapacities
under which the Irish suffer, they were subjected after that great
and glorious revolution, to which we are indebted for so many
blessings, and his Lordship for the termination of so many periods.
The Catholics were not excluded from the Irish House of Commons, or
military commands, before the 3rd and 4th of William and Mary, and
the 1st and 2nd of Queen Anne.

If the great mass of the people, environed as they are on every side
with Jenkinsons, Percevals, Melvilles, and other perils, were to
pray for divine illumination and aid, what more could Providence in
its mercy do than send them the example of Scotland? For what a